Whether football returns, or not, Jurgen’s Red army are winners on every level... pure and simple
daily version of the classified results, every club up and down the land knows tragedy.
And that, it should go without saying, is the ultimate context for arguments about promotion, relegation and titles.
Football does matter, as Leo would have told you in no uncertain terms, but technicalities do not.
When he passed away in a Liverpool hospital, his team were champions. Champions in his mind. And Liverpool ARE the champions of this season.
A champion attitude, a champion team, a champion captain, a champion manager.
No need for open-top buses, especially when hearses are making their way along Anfield Road.
No need for a big shiny trophy, especially when urns cannot be made fast enough. No need for ink in the record books, especially when death registers are growing chapter by chapter, day by day.
I have long thought this season will, technically, end up null and void.
My best guess has always been they will call it grim quits as this dreadful horror continues to unfold, then start from scratch when the world emerges blinking into the post-coronavirus light. I have always thought that is the best option.
That is what the Dutch have done. In Germany, though, they are trying to find a way to complete the season and, if that can be done here, then fine. We would all love to see football sooner rather than later.
But if it is not possible, then so be it. If the authorities here decide final placings – throughout the leagues – should be decided on a points-per-game ratio, fine.
That scenario, we are warned, would result in a torrent of legal challenges.
So be it. Waging court cases because you have just been relegated from a tier of football competition when tens of thousands have been laid to rest without a proper funeral is not a good look.
If you feel there is an injustice, tough.
Thousands of families are stricken by grief and you are throwing a legal hissy-fit, worried the TV millions won’t come your way? Tough. Alternatively, the null-andvoid option – certainly not favoured by UEFA – might lead to challenges from teams set for promotion. Again, tough. And, of course, that option would not be favoured by Liverpool. But my guess now is that even they – the owners, Jurgen Klopp, Jordan Henderson and the rest of the players – are not greatly concerned with the formality of a first title win in three decades.
After all, if they are ‘officially’ crowned title winners by a resumption of the season or by a points-per-game settlement, there will be no carousing, no champagne, no bunting.
If, as has happened in Holland, they are not ‘officially’ crowned winners, it will also not matter.
Because, as far as uncle Leo was concerned when he left us, they were already champions, in the purest sense of the word.
And that – rather than the technical, administrative, legal, horribly cold way of the modern footballing world – is the only thing that matters.
Familes are grief-stricken and you’re throwing a legal hissy-fit
manager Emma Hayes (right) would bring a plain-speaking vitality and intelligence to a role that could mark her out as one of football’s great coaches.