Stephen Halliday: Cash rich Uefa must help clubs survive in order to finish 2019-20

Sporting integrity comes at a price. If Uefa is as determined as it makes out to ensure the conclusion of all domestic leagues across Europe this season still happens on the pitch, then it is time to show the colour of its money.

Aided by their Champions League riches, Aleksander Ceferin and his Uefa colleagues must help struggling clubs. Picture: Getty.

The Scottish Professional Football League, like most of its counterparts across the continent, would happily be spared the prospect of calling time on the 2019-20 season and all of the discord caused by titles, promotions and relegations being decided on the basis of incomplete league tables.

But, as the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic bites ever deeper at clubs in all four divisions of the SPFL, that is increasingly seen as the most likely course of action in order to be able to distribute this campaign’s much needed prize money as soon as possible.

The Belgian Pro League’s decision on Thursday to break ranks and declare its season at an end, subject to ratification by its general assembly on 15 April, went down like the proverbial lead balloon at Uefa headquarters.

It flies in the face of the letter sent to all 55 Uefa members, co-signed by the European Club Association and the European Leagues (of which, awkwardly, the Belgian Pro League is a founder member), which states that such abandonment of domestic competitions is considered “premature and not justified”.

With the added warning that clubs awarded league titles and placings on the basis of unfinished leagues could be denied entry to the 2020-21 Champions League and Europa League, it constitutes a robust message from Uefa which wishes to exhaust every logistic possibility which might allow this season to be played to a finish.

That being the case, then European football’s governing body needs to back up its rhetoric with hard cash in order to help clubs in countries such as Scotland to survive while the game is still in cold storage.

Last Wednesday, on the day Uefa held its latest COVID-19 videoconference with member associations, it also published its latest annual report to much less fanfare. The financial section makes for interesting reading and suggests Uefa should be capable of underwriting advance payments to struggling leagues and clubs.

Largely due to the commercial success of the Champions League, whose sporting integrity it is so keen to preserve, Uefa’s revenue for 2018-19 was an eye-watering £3.4 billion. In fairness, through its standard redistribution of funds to clubs and associations it made an overall loss of £40.8 million for the year. But that is a hit Uefa could easily absorb as, at the end of the accounting period, it had cash reserves at the bank of £506m.

As is the case for Fifa, which reported cash reserves of £2.2bn in its last accounts, the time has surely come for football’s governing bodies to dip into those rainy day funds.

Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin has positioned himself as a progressive administrator since his appointment in 2016. Now is the time for the Slovenian lawyer to step up to the plate and show he is worth the £1.6m salary he earned last season.

Ceferin and his colleagues have been accused by some of being in denial about coronavirus and the length of time which football could yet remain in limbo due to the global health crisis.

But when not even the medical experts can offer any certainty over how long we will remain in lockdown, Uefa has at least some justification for hedging its bets and attempting to restructure a sporting conclusion to 2019-20.

As unrealistic as many, including the SPFL hierarchy, believe that scenario is, it is one to which football can still cling – but only if Uefa is prepared to rummage down the back of that expensive leather sofa in Nyon.

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