Wise Men Say: Abandonment is not the answer, football needs to pause until coronavirus pandemic passes

Sunderland supporters at Bristol Rovers last week.

But after a week of will-they-won’t-they, the Premier League and Football League fell in line with the majority of global sporting events and agreed to suspend all fixtures until early April at least.

As human beings, my own opinion is that we should be looking to minimize the spread of COVID-19, which in turn will reduce the demand on our already-stretched NHS and hopefully lessen the amount of people succumbing to the virus. We all know people who would be badly affected by the illness, those with compromised immune systems, the infirm, the elderly, cancer patients. The consequences of those contracting COVID-19 could be grave.

Football’s stance on the matter last week, where players were prevented from shaking hands, was merely a gesture when you consider at Liverpool, for example, there were 53,000 fans inside Anfield in close proximity to each other.

We can all lament the loss of football but, quite frankly, we need to grow up and accept that all elements of our lives are going to be disrupted for the next few months.

Going to a match, or a gig, or going on holiday, isn’t some show of defiance to COVID-19. It’s almost willfully allowing the virus to spread to our most vulnerable members of society.

There will be no Sunderland matches for the foreseeable future and many people are questioning what happens to the 2019-20 season. There are huge knock-on effects to consider and it’s a situation nobody in power has ever experienced before.

The last abandonment of a season was in 1939 when the Football League was brought to a halt as the Second World War broke out. At that point just three league fixtures had been completed - so it is different to what we face now.

I don’t think abandonment is the answer. Football merely needs to pause while this pandemic passes. It’ll still be there when we come back.

Until then, look after each other, whack on a rerun of the 1973 FA Cup final, read some books and the beautiful game will be back before we know it.