In a perverse way, it’s kind of amusing, watching all the in-fighting. Current players and officials, officials and commentators, coaches and officials, past players and present players , commentators and coaches,  commentators and commentators. Wow – in the words of the great Bill Lawry, “It’s all happening!”

Just as an aside, when exactly did the friction between the television presenters become more newsworthy than the players and the clubs?

It’s funny what no football does to people, isn’t it?

I’m talking about AFL, and Eddie and Caro and Tony and Corey and James and Gillian and Paul and Ross, but I could be talking about any code of football. Perhaps anywhere in the world.

Under normal circumstances, the games gloss over much of the disquiet, in the same way as winning hides all evil. But as we’re all too well aware, at the moment, they’re aint no games and aint no winners. Just idle bodies and over active minds, fighting to protect their patch.

Is the tension understandable? Absolutely- we’ve got  management and officials fighting for their very existence, punching doggedly with one hand while ruefully showing loyal, hard working staff out the door with the other. Staff who earn a mere fraction of the pay taken home by the highly paid, highly pampered athletes whose livelihood they’re so desperate to preserve.

That’s tension right there.

These are hugely testing times for every game at every level.

For the seriously professional leagues, it might be a suitable time to take a good look under the bonnet. Pull apart the motor. Cast a careful eye over the financial drivers – the outgoings, as well as the incomings.

Then ask the question, “do we really need to be spending what we’re spending? On players, on executives, on admin, on support staff, on assistant coaches? On helper-outer-ers? The former club legend? The vibe guy around the club?

And not withstanding the obscene amounts of money, pouring into the code on the back of the those lucrative broadcast deals…. can we really afford it? Is the level of spending sustainable?

We often talk about what big business can learn from elite sport. One discipline that elite sport can definitely learn from big business is financial prudence. Doing more with less, rather than more with more and more.

Additionally, a bit of “bomb-proofing” – not spending every cent that comes in the door. Because of ego. Because you’ve got to win. Because you’ve got to be the best.

Some might argue that’s the very essence of sport, where it starts and finishes. Win the title, or be remembered as a loser.

But that discards the very notion of the salary cap,  introduced not only to protect the spend-thrifts from themselves, but to level the playing field – make sure the same clubs or teams don’t win all the time.

It’s my prediction as we emerge from the darkness of the COVID virus, professional sport will see new light, a new shade of grey.

Through necessity, codes and clubs will realise that frugality is not only desirable, it’s at times essential.

We make our worst decisions when things are going well. In tougher times, we’re a lot sharper, more discerning.  Having, for instance, 26 people on your coaching staff (Go the Pies!) may or may not be a relevant example.

The next 12 months will be very interesting.

At a micro level, I’m predicting a lot of the bullshit” jobs will disappear. The people on and off the field who don’t contribute meaningfully to the bottom line, will not be reinstated. Not because they’re not good people, but because the game can survive without them.

On a macro level, some competitions will be scaled back, others may disappear altogether. Athlete salaries will be more heavily scrutinised, at least temporarily. And a few clubs that have never been commercially viable, sadly for their fans, will finally bite the dust – go the way of numerous others that were suited to a different era, just not this one.

Professional sport contributes enormously to the color, excitement and enjoyment of our daily lives.

But to suggest it should be able to rely in any way on the public purse, in good times, bad times, even tragic times, is totally preposterous.