Premier League owners are asking everyone else to recompense their costs Having bullied the players they now need their help to survive coronavirus crisis

                                                                                                      when the nation was plunged into a crisis and football’s rainy day came, the Premier League’s billionaire owners had a simple message for us: there’s nothing left. 

And as they delivered it, they asked everyone else to recompense them for what they had squandered.

They asked us, the taxpayers, by applying to the Government’s furlough scheme to help pay lower-paid staff. And most of all, they asked the players. They treated them like children. They bullied them and patronised them and then they begged them. And they seemed surprised when the players did not respond with obeisance in the meeting between the two sides on Saturday.

Here is something worth remembering as we contemplate football’s civil war: no one loves football because of its pen-pushers and its men in suits. No one would pay a penny to watch Daniel Levy do his accounts. No one wants to be in on the moment when Ed Woodward seals a deal with a noodle sponsor. No one wants to watch Stan Kroenke count his money.

We are here for the players. All of us. We go to Tottenham to see Harry Kane score goals. Or to Anfield to watch the breathtaking brilliance of Trent Alexander-Arnold. Or to the Etihad to see the magic in the boots of Kevin de Bruyne. Or to Leicester to see the jet-heeled pace of Jamie Vardy. Or to Old Trafford to see local kid Marcus Rashford bursting through the ranks. Or to the Nou Camp to marvel at the dazzling skills of the greatest of them all, Lionel Messi.Sure, football is nothing without fans. But it is nothing without players, either. It is nothing without heroes for kids. It is nothing without men and women who become icons every bit as powerful in our popular culture as artists and musicians and playwrights. Who would say that Messi or Pele or Maradona were not artists anyway?

We go to football for them. We pay to get into stadiums for them. And not just the superstars. All of us, whoever we support, be it a team in the Premier League or the National League, establish connections with players.

We invest, emotionally and financially for the players, while money-makers and speculators and investors such as Levy and the Glazers and Karren Brady and Kroenke and Mino Raiola get richer on their backs and watch the money accrue in their coffers.

Premier League clubs get in the region of £200m a season in TV revenue. Because of the players. Because of the thrills they bring, because of the skills they bring. Everything around them is, to use one of the most cynical of modern expressions.