Neil Humphreys: Man United friendly match farce shows Covid-19 madness
Their axed friendly against Stoke City highlights life-threatening risks
The English Premier League has taken another, shaky stride towards a horror show that would be considered too crazy for Hollywood.
Imagine trying to pitch Project Restart's latest storyline.
In a dark montage, the world's biggest football club emerges from months of hibernation to prepare for a significant training match.
Players are apprehensive. A pandemic forced them to hide behind their gated mansions and it won't go away.
On the contrary, the virus continues to infect too many people in the communities that surround the world's biggest football club. But money talks.
In fact, it screams at players to return to work and salvage television deals.
So the world's biggest football club, Manchester United, stages a friendly. But the game is cancelled, just hours before kick-off. The virus has infected someone in the opposition.
Actually, it's not just someone. It's the manager. He finds himself stricken with the same infection that has already killed 50,000 people in the UK.
So his players are rushed out of the training ground, just seven days before the season is about to resume and… stop.
Just stop.
That's the moment when any half-decent producer laughs the screenwriter out of the pitch meeting. Global viruses, infected managers, cancelled matches and a seven-day countdown sounds so ridiculously implausible that no audience would buy it.
Perhaps that's why there will be no stadium audiences when the EPL resumes. Its troubling reality has now surpassed even the worst indulgences of a terrible sci-fi writer.
United really were just hours away from interacting with a prominent Covid-19 victim. Stoke City manager Michael O'Neill tested positive before their practice game at the Red Devils' training ground yesterday.
Stoke's players were forced to leave immediately. The English Championship club will now resume their campaign with O'Neill's assistant, Billy McKinlay, in charge.
Stoke face Reading next Saturday morning (Singapore time). The Red Devils visit Tottenham Hotspur earlier on the same day.
That gives both clubs just over a week to overcome their close encounter with the most infectious virus since the Spanish Flu of 1918.
No course for alarm, apparently.
FINANCIAL OBLIGATIONS
Of course, United's plan to invite opposition to the training ground will be reviewed as they continue preparations for a season that resumes in six days, which leads to the inescapable conclusion that Project Restart might be a tad complicated.
Or it's a reckless attempt to fulfil financial obligations, no matter how many compromises are required along the way.
Project Restart already tests the boundaries of our collective morality. Covid-19 has taken at least 50,000 British lives so far and is still killing too many people, particularly in northern areas such as Manchester and Liverpool.
Whatever feel-good factor the game may bring has to be offset against the unpalatable reality of an increased death toll in the coming weeks, which may be hard to block out when watching Aston Villa v Sheffield United.
The risks remain. A fact not lost on the stakeholders in League One and League Two. The lower tiers have agreed to end their seasons with immediate effect.
Their final standings will be determined via a points-per-game formula. The system is by no means perfect, but it's the least bad idea on offer.
They have at least cleared that uncomfortable ethical hurdle. The Covid-19 hazard has been removed.
With impeccable timing, the English Football League cancelled their lower-tier competitions on the same day that an EPL club cancelled a friendly, after the opponents' manager tested positive for Covid-19.
You couldn't make this up, could you?
MONEY
The circumstances are different, but only in one aspect. Money. The haves start again. The have-nots call it quits.
The broader health of the community seems to have less bearing on the decision-making process. It all comes down to cash.
League One and Two clubs cannot maintain the substantial costs of providing regular tests for all players and staff. EPL clubs can.
Similarly, the lower leagues cannot host matches without the match-day revenue that comes through the turnstiles. EPL clubs can. They have TV payments to cover the shortfall from empty stadiums.
But they may struggle to hold the moral high ground.
The EPL's determination to play on, despite the inherent risks involved, looks increasingly dangerous, not to mention selfish.
A positive test before a friendly is not a crisis. But a similar incident before an EPL fixture will expose the hypocrisy and bring this season to a premature and shameful end.
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