Christmas is a busy and expensive time of year. For many, money will be tight. And trying to follow your team far and wide never gets any cheaper and is not easy when trying to factor in travel, hotels, time off work and other expenses.
During the past 10 days, as Omicron has spread illness and chaos throughout English football, it has become almost impossible. Currently, it requires a crystal ball and sheer blind luck to know whether a game is even going to be on at the end of a 200-mile coach ride.
Yet why is it that supporters are the ones left out-of-pocket, despite the billions still passing through the game?
Watford’s match against Burnley last Wednesday was one of the many fixtures called off with little notice due to the outbreak of Omicron. The game was cancelled so late that some Watford supporters were already at Turf Moor after a four-hour journey when they realised the game was postponed.
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It’s not only the money, but the time as well. The fans who had made it to Turf Moor before stretching their legs for five minutes and getting back on the road arrived back in Watford at around 11pm. Some would have taken Wednesday off work to travel and possibly the Thursday, too, knowing they would not get back home until the early hours.
To Watford’s credit, they announced that fans who travelled on official coaches would be reimbursed. But what about those who had made their own way? What about petrol, train fares, or hotel costs?
Clubs are refunding tickets when games are moved. But that really is the bare minimum. You sell a ticket for an event that doesn’t happen, you give the money back. But that ignores the fact that a great deal of the cost of following a club is time and travel.
At Manchester United, it’s thought that club officials knew around mid-afternoon the day before their trip to Brentford, 200 miles away, that the game would be off, but confirmation did not come until close to midnight. Thousands of fans would have woken up on the morning of the game, checking phones to discover it was off.
Planning a trip to Brentford away on a Tuesday night is not straightforward. It could involve trains, tubes, buses, cars, coaches, hotels, annual leave.
A return from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston travelling out of peak hours would cost around £90 at the cheapest end, for example. Try to get an early train back from London to make work the next day and you’re looking at more like £200.
A few hundred quid might be 0.04 per cent of Cristiano Ronaldo’s weekly wages — he may be able to pay for that in four minutes — but for most others that’s a hefty chunk of their salary.
“Manchester United regrets the inconvenience caused to Brentford and to the fans of both clubs by Covid-19,” was all the Manchester United fans got at the end of the statement cancelling the game at 11.50pm on Monday night.
Burnley fans, meanwhile, found themselves on the other end of it on Saturday when their game against Aston Villa was called off a few hours before kick-off. Many Burnley supporters had already made the 120-mile trip to Birmingham. One fan had even travelled from Amsterdam via four Covid tests, a missed flight and a bus from Manchester.
This is not to criticise the Premier League for making tough calls under pressure in extraordinary circumstances. If games need to be called off, they need to be called off. But perhaps a little empathy for the travelling supporters, often the gnarled devotees who epitomise what traditional football support is about, would not go amiss.
Clubs need to be careful rejecting unvaccinated players
Premier League clubs will have to tread carefully if they decide not to sign unvaccinated players during the January transfer window. Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has been most vocal about this but Steven Gerrard, Mikel Arteta and Eddie Howe are among the other managers to suggest the same.
Clubs are allowed to ask potential signings to disclose their vaccination status and are unlikely to be liable if a player has chosen not to get jabbed due to wild anti-vaccine conspiracy theories learned from Dr Internet.
However, if a player has refused the vaccine due to religious beliefs or due to another medical condition, if a club decided not to proceed with an agreed transfer on that basis, they could be in breach of the Equality Act and open to being sued.
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