Dowden: "The next steps will be to ask sports to help themselves, starting with the Premier League in respect of football and then to see what further support the government can provide."
Thursday 24 September 2020 19:55, UK
The Premier League will be expected to help clubs throughout the football ladder after plans to allow fans to return at sports venues has been paused, according to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Oliver Dowden.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Tuesday that the phased return of fans to watch live sport, which was earmarked to start on October 1, could be on hold for six months due to fears over the growing rate of coronavirus infections.
Although Sky Sports News was told on several occasions that the date was 'aspirational', the decision was met with widespread criticism from the football community, as the continued staging of games behind closed doors will plunge the financial situation of tens of clubs into even more jeopardy.
The Premier League was left 'frustrated' by the decision as it believed clubs could have safely hosted the return of fans although the government promised to provide a degree of financial help to clubs, which was welcomed by the Football Association.
Premier League chiefs are in talks with the EFL regarding a support package after the latter's chairman Rick Parry warned that Championship, League One and League Two clubs will lose a combined £200m if the 2020/21 season takes place entirely behind closed doors.
Speaking during Topical Questions in Parliament, Dowden said: "I am acutely aware of the impact to postpone from 1st of October.
"The next steps will be working alongside the Chancellor and sports first of all to understand their circumstances and details of what will impact them... [and] to ask sports to help themselves, starting with the Premier League in respect of football and then to see what further support the government can provide."
Minister for Sport Nigel Huddleston MP also told Parliament that he expects the "top tiers" of sport to help one another through the coronavirus crisis after the Government's decision to postpone the return of fans from October 1.
"We appreciate this latest announcement will have economic consequences," Huddleston said. "Where it can, we will expect the top tier of professional sport to look at ways in which it can support itself with Government focusing on those in need."
"I wish I could stand here and give definitive timescales for what we would be able to do [in allowing fans to return into stadia], but we live in such uncertain times."
The minister confirmed that he has now written to all major spectator sports to formally begin discussions about the impact of no spectators watching live sport for potentially up to another 6 months.
Robbie Cowling, chairman of League Two club Colchester United, published an open letter he wrote to Boris Johnson on Wednesday in which he claimed that the decision to delay the return of sports fans to stadiums "threatens the livelihoods of every club across every sport in the UK".
"Can someone explain to me again how I can safely sit in a confined aeroplane with 300 other passengers and I can safely eat inside a restaurant or drink inside a pub until 10pm but I can't safely attend a football match which is predominately outside and has been certificated as safe by a SAG?", wrote Cowling.
Speaking to Sky Sports News on Thursday, Cowling said the decision went against all the efforts that football clubs have been making in the past few months and warned clubs could go out of business as a result.
"First of all, I was just so angry when we heard what was going on," he said. "At Colchester, we've been spending months preparing to get our fans sadely back into our ground.
"We've been removing up to 800 seats, we've been building steps so fans don't even have to brush past each other, and to suddenly hear of this approach that was taken that took no consideration of the work that's been going in really angered me.
"I spoke to a lot of other chairmen and people in the game and other sports and I felt like the only thing to do was really put it down and explain that football stadiums have got so much control in them already. We've got these safety advisory groups and they really understand when a stadium is safe to open and in what sort of level.
"I was just so angry that that sort of devolved power had been completely overwritten, and it's going to deny us as a club of what we need to do which is to trade."
