Coronavirus case studies: How English football's pyramid will be hit by ongoing fan absence
Premier League: Arsenal
It is exactly 20 years since Arsenal took the momentous decision to buy an industrial and waste disposal estate in Ashburton Grove. Arsene Wenger and David Dein had almost certainly never heard of Roman Abramovich, Sheikh Mansour or Stan Kroenke at that moment but, for all the subsequent financial transformation of English football by billionaire owners, one basic consequence of that decision has remained unchanged.
Arsenal’s business model and entire plan to become one of Europe’s ‘superclubs’ still rests more heavily on its stadium and matchday revenues than just about any other. And, even allowing for all the frustrations at the club’s inability to win a Premier League title since 2004, it has provided a solid foundation for one of the highest wage bills in British football. In the long-term, it will also protect Arsenal against a drop in wider income from the Premier League's broadcast deal. Yet it is also why Arsenal, among all of English football’s elite, will be proportionately most impacted by the potential absence of matchday fans until the end of the season.
Financial analysts Vysyble studied the impact across the Premier League and, with around a quarter of their income generally coming from matchdays, Arsenal are forecast to lose £122.7 million for the period between the start of lockdown in March and next May. That is £40m more than Chelsea and almost £50m more than Manchester City. Even Liverpool and Tottenham, with their respectively upgraded homes, would be forecast to lose between £18m and £16m less.
What will that mean on a day-to-day basis? Whether the decision was morally justifiable or not, that bottom line may well have influenced the staff redundancies earlier this year and, while resources were found to extend Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s contract, Arsenal will be proportionately more restricted than most of their competitors for Champions League football over the next season.
Football League: Fleetwood Town
For League One players, the financial hit of Covid-19 has had serious salary implications.
Fleetwood Town manager Joey Barton offered a graphic illustration of how even the highest earners have had wages slashed in half as clubs seek to avoid crippling losses.
“Our top earner last season would have probably earned around £3,000 a week. Now we can pay maybe £1,500 a week,” Barton revealed.
Across the scale, the already yawning gap has widened between the Premier League stars - whose salaries may have been deferred but not reduced during last season’s lockdown - and those struggling to make a living from the game in the lower levels.
“There are sides in our league who are offering £400, £500, £600 and £700 a week because they have no fans in,” said Barton, who described the prospect of football without fans for most of this season as ‘armageddon’.
“If we don’t have fans back into the stadium, clubs are going to be severely hampered if not forced to the wall.”
In their last set of accounts for 2018-19 - published in April and preceding the impact of the pandemic - the club revealed it employs 50 playing staff and 165 non-playing staff, with their collective salaries amounting to £6.29m. They reported losses of £6m, with the club reliant on the financial input of owner and director Andy Pilley.
Pilley has been among the most vocal in calling for football to come together to find solutions, sentiments his manager echoes.
“We are going to be absolutely decimated,” said Barton. “We have that much money in the game that it should not be happening. We have to protect the game from itself.”
National League: Altrincham
At Atrincham FC they were ready for their return to the National League after promotion in August. The playing staff had been taken off furlough, guidelines had been stringently followed, preparations made to ensure the club’s Moss Lane ground was capable of hosting the anticipated 1,000 spectators, all properly socially distanced. And then came Tuesday’s governmental announcement that the plan to admit fans had been suspended indefinitely.
“If you ask me what we do now, there’s a simple answer: I don’t know yet,” said Bill Waterson, the club chairman. “The National League had repeatedly said if there were no fans there would be no restart. They recognised without fans clubs would not have sufficient income to support playing behind closed doors. Hence the delay of the start to October 3. That now appears to be a gamble that didn’t pay off. And we have yet to hear from them what happens now.”
At Altrincham, Waterson and the board had made plans for every possibility. They have developed a streaming service to allow fans to watch behind-closed-doors fixtures. But he admits that would only deliver about 25 per cent of standard match-day revenue.
“If we started behind closed doors, we could probably live for a month or two. If there is a suspension of the start of the league, we will put our staff back on furlough, which will carry us to the end of October. After that, we just don't know."
But while believing there may well be casualties among National League clubs in these fan-free days, Waterson instated his would not be among them.
“We did some serious modelling back in May and we are confident if there is no football at all this season, there will still be an Altrincham FC for 2021-22. That is the only beacon of hope I can deliver: we have looked at the worst and are not scared of it.”
Women's football: Lewes
As the first elite women’s football side to welcome back fans, Lewes were ready to press ahead with their second crowd pilot this Saturday, when they were expecting 250 fans at their 2,500-capacity ground. Like other sport pilots, it was abandoned after the Government's tightening of coronavirus restrictions.
With the English Football League expected to be excluded from an emergency rescue package for sport, there is a genuine fear lower resourced women’s clubs could be out of business by the end of this season.
“Without sustained support from the Government or the Football Association, smaller clubs will struggle,” warned Maggie Murphy, the general manager at the community-owned club.
“I fear the only women’s clubs who can sustain themselves over the course of the season will be those who are dependent on big male clubs for their funds.”
If elite women’s games are not broadcast in the wake of crowd bans, the feeling that fanbases may be lost at clubs who are not propped up by a Premier League ally intensifies.
“Fanbases are still fragile in the women’s game,” added Murphy. “We were trying to transition ours from people who saw women’s football as an event, something they would come to every few months, to something they could come to every week.
“That was already difficult because the leagues are so small, games are already so few and far between so it’s hard to create habits. Now, if you take away the fans - of course you take away the revenue - but you also take away their interest.”
