Football's arguments becoming tiresome - sport and Leeds United's Premier League dream can wait - Graham Smyth

A football obsession can be a blessing and a curse, as Leeds United fans can testify, but in lockdown, it only feels like the latter.
DORMANT: Elland Road has not hosted a game since March 7 and it is not yet known when the next action for Leeds United will be.DORMANT: Elland Road has not hosted a game since March 7 and it is not yet known when the next action for Leeds United will be.
DORMANT: Elland Road has not hosted a game since March 7 and it is not yet known when the next action for Leeds United will be.

During a major tournament summer like this one, had the world not been hit by a pandemic, wall-to-wall football is a glorious thing.

Matches, in which you have no dog in the fight, are watched with an interest so keen it baffles people who do not love this sport.

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Football never really goes away, in normal circumstances, not really, because the short gap between seasons is either filled with a World Cup, a European Championships or a boatload of transfer speculation and, before you know it, pre-season friendlies are upon us.

It has, however, gone away in its live form at least, for now.

What we have been left with all feels a bit hollow.

There’s plenty of nostalgia, which must be a little depressing for clubs with no real past glories to speak of.

Gaming, namely FIFA, has played a part, not least on Leeds United’s social media feeds, where simulated games have taken the place of real ones.

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Football Manager, or for those of a certain vintage, Championship Manager, remains the escapism of choice for many – showing a succession of ex-Elland Road bosses that taking Leeds to the promised land is all very simple really. In theory. On a screen.

But some days it feels completely hollow because the very thing it is all based on has gone away, for the time being.

Some days it feels like people who say they like football but don’t follow a team are the lucky ones.

You would never say that when you’ve just watched your side lift a trophy and thrown your arms around a random person who happens to be wearing some garment of a colour you approve, or when your diminutive Spanish midfielder has just carved open an entire defence with one perfectly weighted first-time pass, or sent a ball looping through the air into the top corner from 22 yards.

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Then, we are the lucky ones. That is when a football obsession feels like a gift.

Without those moments and without games in which they can take place, it is a curse.

And yet, for all the longing, the hoping and the praying that a return to action will be swift, the talk of players going back to training and a resumption of play, even if it was to be behind closed doors, feels very premature and a little silly when coronavirus pandemic is still raging through the country and killing so many.

The thought of Covid-19 testing kits being dished out to footballers to ensure they are infection-free, simply to make matches happen in empty stadiums feels difficult to justify. And the arguments, the suggestions – let’s not even give shortened halves the time of day – the myriad voices proposing whatever outcome suits their club best, have become tiresome, if not embarrassing for everyone involved in the game.

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Football is vital as an industry that employs so many and as a British way of life, so bringing fixtures back is important – but it is not urgent.

Completing the season via the method of actual football, and not some mathematical equation, at a time when medical and science experts are satisfied it is safe to do so, still feels the fairest means of deciding the major honours.

Leeds United should be afforded the opportunity to earn the promotion their 2019/20 effort, style and results have merited.

But not yet.

If there is one word that should not be breathed in a sentence containing that by-now nauseating phrase ‘ramping up’, it is football. People, lots of people are still dying and we can surely only contemplate a game of football when everyone involved can guarantee it will add no further strain or issues to the horror already faced by frontline NHS workers.

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The Premier League and EFL should be in talks with the government because it is prudent to be prepared and give clubs, players and supporters as much information and notice as possible.

And the sport would provide a welcome distraction at a time when the lockdown is feeling so heavy for many.

It would indeed be a blessing.

But so would a day at the seaside, a trip to the cinema or sending the kids to school.

Like all of those things, like all important but not urgent things, football can wait.