Postponing Football

Last Thursday night, it was announced to the world that Queen Elizabeth II had passed away at the age of 96. She died peacefully at Balmoral following an incredible 70-year stint as the country’s monarch, making her reign the longest in the nation’s history.

An outpouring of grief soon followed from many across the globe with tributes coming in from many different people, both in the public eye and general members of the public who simply wanted to pay their respects.

Her Majesty was able to lead an incredible life and as a result of that alone, she had earned the right to receive such a warm tribute. On Monday, her final journey will conclude with her funeral, which has now been dubbed a bank holiday due to the historical importance of this moment.

While we completely understand the mourning period and some football games in the Premier League being postponed this weekend due to a lack of policing resources, we still can’t fathom why they went ahead with the decision to postpone fixtures last weekend.

Instead of giving football fans a chance to have a positive outlet for their grief, if they had any in the first place, they took away the impact of being able to watch a game we all love – while still putting on other sporting events that, simply put, may have better aligned with the interests of the monarchy.

The Premier League themselves are largely at fault for making a decision such as this and it feels like they just got cold feet. Instead of wanting to send out a message of strength, they cowered away, as they so often do.

One of the even bigger problems stems from the fact that this is a World Cup year unlike any other. As opposed to the tournament taking place in the summer, it’ll instead go down in the winter, posing an assortment of problems with regards to the schedule for league games.

That’s the kind of congestion that is going to raise some serious squad depth problems and we’re fascinated to know why such a decision was taken with all of the facts put out before us.

We’re delighted to see that play will resume in the days ahead but in the future, it does feel as if there needs to be some level of sympathy for all facets of the argument.

We aren’t here to tell people how they should or shouldn’t feel about the passing of the Queen, or even the dawning of a new era with King Charles III. We just want to note that once again, it feels like pressure from outsiders who were worried about football fans’ reactions to the tributes overtook common sense.

There are so many unfair stereotypes associated with those who go and watch the football in England on a week-to-week basis and perhaps instead of immediately jumping to conclusions, we should be given a chance to just sit back and watch this form of wonderful entertainment as it was intended.