Premier League critics should recognise football cannot wait for ever | Jonathan Wilson

The objections to restart plans are understandable and the game should pay attention, but ultimately clubs need to play games to survive

With each week the plans become a little more refined and with each week any final decision is pushed back. Football may return, and this is how it may look if it does, but nobody is sure, and any proposed date can only be provisional. Which is as it should be. In an age that often favours decisiveness over the decision itself, there is something vaguely comforting about a process that accepts the wisdom of waiting.

But in the background there is a crucial, nagging voice, and what it is saying is this: if football isn’t prepared to return, at least initially, in a form very different to the one it took before the virus, it may not return for a very long time – and for many clubs that means never.

Related: Premier League must exercise caution in return fraught with lethal hazards | David Conn

The vital point, perhaps, is this: that measures may be necessary not only for this season but for next as well

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