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In The Briefing Room, David Aaronovitch and guests find out how the pandemic has hit football where it hurts, and ask the question – Does it really matter if football clubs go bust?

It’s not just low turnouts at games that can damage a club’s takings: when television companies go bankrupt, the clubs themselves are put in a precarious position. When clubs are relegated, it’s not just their reputation that’s at stake: poor performance can also make clubs take a financial nosedive, as moving down a league loses them their broadcast backing. Kieran explains how drastic this can be: if a leading club is knocked out of the Premier League, the TV revenue they would subsequently receive would cover the average salaries of just two of their players! While the average wage of a male Premier League footballer is £3 million, the average salary of a women’s Super League footballer is £27,500.

Can women’s football weather the pandemic?

Unlike the men’s Premier League, women’s football is dependent on commercial investment and sponsorship, and for top women’s club Manchester City, a tiny six per cent of their revenue is from broadcasting. Dr Alex Culver, a senior lecturer in sports business, explains that women’s football is financially dependent on men’s, so if men’s football takes a hit, women’s football teams are pulled down with them. No specific financial support was offered to the women’s Super League by the Football Association when the pandemic brought the sport to a stop back in March, and financial support from the Premier League was not effected until the 2021 season. Alex explains that the “precarious position” the players were left in “has resulted in a high level of mental health concerns for professional women footballers.”

Alex's recent research conducted with Durham University has uncovered other ways that women’s football will be disproportionately affected by the pandemic. It was found that fans appreciated the way in which the players interacted with them after matches and on social media in a way that was unique to the women’s sport. “There’s a concern that if the game is continued to be played behind closed doors because of the Covid-19 pandemic, fans will lose that accessibility with players, and they’ll stop being interested in women’s football,” explains Alex. She says that this could lead to a “domino effect”, with fewer players, fewer spectators and therefore lower revenues.

Does it matter if football clubs go out of business?

Football clubs can be vital to local economies

For those who take no pleasure from the territorial pursuit of an air-filled sphere around a field, the potential downfall of numerous football teams, particularly those below the Premier League, may not feel like a great loss. Professor of Political Economy, Helen Thompson, defends the sport: “It has provided a literal season, a structure of time through the year, and it provides a climax at the end of that. People mark their lives by what happens in football seasons of the clubs that they support.” For cities which have a dedicated team, she explains, it is an important part of the local economy, so by extension, she says, “the fact that these clubs are in difficulty means that the local economies are in difficulty too.” Sociologist and author David Goldblatt explains that there is an emotional significance attached to football too, particularly with smaller, local clubs. For their fans they provide “a central source of identity, meaning, personal narrative that binds them to a wider community and that towns and cities embrace.” Football has huge economic and cultural worth, and as a sport its health benefits are not to be ignored either. For many, five-a-side games with friends are a key way of keeping fit, blowing off steam and having meaningful social contact with others. The pandemic may have knocked football back, but the game isn’t over yet.