The state of football in Serbia and in Europe after the Covid 19 pandemic

Abstract

This article describes in considerable detail the most significant implications of the COVID 19 pandemic for football organisations (national football associations and football clubs) in Europe. The author makes the point that the relevant available facts do not support earlier predictions that the pandemic would bring about the demise of football as a consequence of temporary cancellations of football competitions (and of their subsequent resumption by playing matches without the presence of spectators). The text considers in some detail the factual, financial and legal measures taken by individual states, national football associations and UEFA in order to preserve and even to develop further the sport of football during the pandemic (which is not over, although its end may be in sight). The author points out that, contrary to earlier predicitions, the novel circumstances resulting from the pandemic did not lead to large scale football club closures, and that the medical profession still needs to assess the claim that a single football match played in Milan at the beginning of 2020 triggered the spread of the pandemic in norther Italy. The final part of the article presents the view that football as a sport and as a business, football players, people professionally working in the field of football, as well as football fans and all those who follow the sport, have demonstrated far greater resilience in facing medical, economic and organisational challenges than was initially predicted. In a nutshell, the facts presented in the text support the conclusion that the pandemic actually contributed to the faster modernising transformation of several key aspects of football orgatisations, the systems of football as a sport, football regulations and the football market - all of which have emerged better adapted to operating in the modern world than would have been the case if it had not been for the pandemic.