As Covid-19 lockdown restrictions continue to be relaxed across the country the possibility of football fans returning to live matches grows ever closer.
The government has so far restricted crowds at pilot events to a maximum of 1,000 spectators, and is currently reviewing this figure in the wake of further coronavirus outbreaks in certain parts of the country.
National League chairman Brian Barwick has written to Oliver Dowden, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how the decision on the return of fans to football grounds will affect its clubs, their employees and local communities. Barwick has also asked for the permission to commence the season on October 3, with fans in attendance.
The 2020-21 season had originally been given the start date of October 3, as it would coincide with the date of October 1 that the UK government had announced that fans could return to watch live matches.
In addition to the National League, the Premier League to stick its original plan and Chief Executive Richard Masters has stated that the league's 20 member clubs could lose £700million between them.
With the news this week that Macclesfield Town were wound up in the High Court with debts of £500,000 - following their relegation from League Two - the stark of reality of the situation of loss of revenue has been brought home. With no equivalent of the government's 'Eat Out to Help Out' scheme available to clubs during the coronavirus lockdown, the absence of the income generated on matchdays has been greatly felt.
Clubs across the National League have been busily calculating their stadium's new socially distanced capacities, with the necessity to protect the health and wellbeing of supporters is at the forefront of the club's involved.
Seven EFL league matches are set to be played in front of crowds of 1,000 - and the success of these matches will be watched with interest from far and wide.
If the government decide that matches cannot be played in front of crowds after October 1 - all games have been played behind closed doors up until now - then ideas to help clubs compensate for the loss of revenue will need to be found.
One possible solution could be live streaming of games, which has been used by Torquay United in their home pre-season friendlies against Hemel Hempstead and AFC Bournemouth Under-23s so far and will also be available to fans when they face Chippenham Town on Saturday. For National League clubs, who operate outside the EFL's ifollow scheme, live streaming could help to bring in money that they wouldn't have otherwise been able to generate, but complications could arise when it came to streaming a game that has been selected for live coverage by BT Sport in terms of contracts etc.
The return of actual football will most certainly provide an amount of relief for many, but the priority should be to ensure that a winter of discontent is avoided for all clubs concerned.
