The two words I’ve heard most over the past week or so in relation to the postponement of all major football across the globe are ‘so’ and ‘what’.

And I admit that set against the backdrop of a worldwide pandemic and thousands of deaths, the idea that 22 men (or women) are not allowed to run around a patch of grass chasing a ball does seem rather trivial.

But I suspect those that are dismissing football, and indeed all the other sports that have ground to a halt, are underestimating how important these things are to everyday life.

There are so many vital things that playing, watching and following sport provides, from the obvious, such as exercise and entertainment, to the more sublime, like providing stress relief and social bonding.

We all know that story of how the British and German soldiers in World War I stopped fighting on Christmas Day, crawled out of their respective trenches and played a game of football.

And that’s because sport has this unbelievable power to bring people together and allow them to momentarily forget all their other problems by sharing a beautifully simple common denominator.

Sport, by its very nature, is the perfect distraction from life. Whether you are cheering on your team to victory or watching them hurtle towards failure, it’s a perfect way to set aside your other existential worries for an hour or two. It’s a release valve that we consistently take for granted.

Ironically, if sport had been allowed to continue then I suspect the world’s population would have found it far easier to cope with and accept the necessity to lockdown and self-isolate.

Yet the very popularity of sport, and the millions of people who ritualistically turn up at venues to watch it, meant there was no way it could be allowed to continue because of the potential for disease spreading.

So don’t get me wrong. I entirely agree with the suspension of sport. It needed putting on hold to slow down the coronavirus spread, and nobody can argue otherwise.

Sport has this unbelievable power to bring people together

But that doesn’t mean I can accept all the ‘so whats?’ that seem to be thrown into conversation every time someone mentions cancelled football, postponed races or halted tournaments.

Dismissing sport and underestimating its powers of inclusion, healing and mental well-being are way off the mark.

As I said last week, sport is not a matter of life and death, but getting it back up and running as soon as it is safe and opportune to do so will make dealing with this global crisis much more manageable.

It’s going to bea tight fit

As it stands, Premier League football in England is officially only postponed till the end of April. But anyone who believes that we will see any football at that point needs their head examined.

I personally can’t see the authorities even contemplating allowing any sport to restart until the pandemic is brought under control one way or the other. And even the most optimistic among us can’t really see that happening for another couple of months.

As expected, Euro 2020 has been postponed by a year, and one of the reasons behind that decision was to allow Europe’s leagues to find a way to complete their seasons.

If the league does manage to resume around mid-June, and that remains a big if at this point, it’s still going to be a squash to fit in the end of this season before the start of next. But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I imagine the fixture computer is right now working overtime frantically trying to find different ways of getting it done, based on different restart dates.

One of the main stumbling blocks is that players won’t have much of a break between the conclusion of this season and the start of next. If any.

But they are having a rather large break now aren’t they? And it will probably turn out to be considerably longer than the time off they normally get between the conclusion of one season and them reporting back for pre-season training.

An 11-month span of constant football isn’t ideal for the players, I agree, but it’s doable. And I’m pretty sure footballers are well aware that even when this pandemic is behind us, there will be millions of people dealing with far greater problems in their lives than having to play a bit too much football.

So everyone involved in football will just have to suck it up, take one for the team and face up to a hectic year when the games come thick and fast.

Some German managers might not like it, but it will have to be done.

james@findit.com.mt
Twitter: @maltablade