Soccer’s Business Hasn’t Stopped. It’s Just Waiting for the New Prices.

For Molesley’s Bournemouth colleague Carl Fletcher, the primary concern was player welfare. Fletcher’s role is to monitor the 26 players the club has out on loan; they are largely young, in their late teens and early 20s, farmed out to teams in the lower tiers of English soccer or sent to Scotland to hone their trade. (Though one, the experienced goalkeeper Asmir Begovic, is currently at A.C. Milan.)

“We had to make sure we knew where they were, what they were doing, and for the younger ones that they were fully aware of the situation,” he said. Fletcher felt it was crucial, too, that the players knew they could ask questions. “Mostly,” he said, “it was making sure they were coping, especially the ones that were quite far from home and not living with anyone.”

But once the fitness programs and the lines of communication were in place, the frenetic world of elite soccer had to learn a new, deeply unfamiliar virtue: patience.

Talks between Europe’s clubs, its leagues and its governing bodies have continued for weeks, but each round has only served to highlight the reality facing the sport: that the pandemic will determine the timetable, and nothing else.

As they wait — “just sort of floating,” as Sean Dyche, the Burnley manager, put it — all that managers, coaches, scouts and those in soccer’s back rooms and front offices can do is try to use their time as best they can.

Their experience will be familiar, by now. There is, front and center, the dull ache of anxiety over the virus, the concern about family, friends and colleagues. “The health and safety of everyone, the welfare of the players, they are the most important things,” Dyche said. Burnley, like most clubs, has made all of its services — conditioning, nutrition and psychological — available to its players.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/sports/soccer/transfer-market-soccer-coronavirus.html