Football: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

  A couple of clubs have recently announced the signing of new players in the January window and the simultaneous furloughing of players who are, as a consequence, deemed to be surplus to requirements or who need to be de-registered to stay within squad limits.  One is reported to have brought in 9 new players and furloughed 6 as a direct consequence and others are reported to have done similarly.   This was surely not what the furlough rules were designed for, and it will doubtless stick in the throats of many taxpayers to be paying the salaries of football players when their employers can afford to bring in, and pay, others in their place. Some people have sought to defend the practice saying that the vast majority of clubs outside the top flight have used the furlough scheme (undoubtedly true) and many brought in new players in the window (also true).  But there is a huge difference between the situation where a club used the furlough scheme for players befor...

Welcome to the first edition of this blog.  Over the coming months we will be looking to showcase and discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of British football.  We won't be discussing matches - there is no shortage of coverage of games already - but we will be providing a commentary on some of the big issues affecting the beautiful game.   Given that we are kicking off in a week where the National Leagues North and South have just voted to make the 2020/21 season null and void whilst the National League has voted to play on we have a look at the impact of that on clubs throughout the pyramid. As things stand, it is not clear what will happen with regard to promotion or relegation.  Given that less than half the season has been played, with teams having played only between 11 and 18 fixtures to date, this is a very different scenario to last season's shut down, where most teams had only 10 or so games left to play.  Gloucester City, who currently top the N...