London (AFP)

In one of the countries most affected by the Covid-19 and far from being unconfined, the Premier League will resume on Wednesday, strongly encouraged by the government which criticized at the start of the pandemic the refusal of players' salary cuts.

Britain has exceeded 50,000 coronavirus-related deaths this week, according to the National Statistics Office, and the government has postponed plans to completely reopen schools until September.

Wednesday, however, the football will resume its rights in its motherland for 92 league games and 7 English Cup in just under seven weeks, with a program ensuring an almost daily presence.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said last month that the return of the championship to the screens - the meetings remaining behind closed doors - would provide "a much-needed boost to national morale" in these times of crisis.

The executive has also pushed strongly for a large third of the matches in the championship to be broadcast on channels accessible without subscription, because football occupies "a special place in our national life," said Oliver Dowden, the Secretary of State for Sports.

A nice turnaround from the beginning of the pandemic where the Premier League was less in the smell of holiness.

- Opportunism and cynicism -

At the beginning of April, when the clubs discovered the sudden fall in their revenues linked to the cessation of competition, large institutions such as Tottenham or Liverpool had wanted to use the partial unemployment program set up by the executive for part of their non-player staff.

A measure intended to protect employment and which supported 80% of the monthly salary up to 2,500 GBP (2,788 euros) per employee.

A very badly received gesture coming from clubs largely beneficiaries after a season where they had clashed in the final of the Champions League.

"Morally unacceptable," said Conservative MP Julian Knight, chairman of the parliamentary commission that oversees sports in the House of Commons, on April 2.

A few hours later, Health Minister Matt Hancock reminded the players that everyone had to "play their part" and that the first thing they could do "to help (was) accept a cut in wages".

"I had the feeling that it was very opportunistic on the part of the government and even very cynical," commented to AFP Simon Chadwick, director of Eurasian sports studies at the EM Lyon business school, about of this controversy.

- Rekindle the flame -

"In a few weeks, the government turned its jacket over and suddenly, (football) became essential for national well-being, social cohesion and national identity by providing a distraction from the epidemic."

"The government has used football to serve its interests rather than football itself, or the supporters and the public," he added.

Footballers hardly appreciated this political intrusion into their sport.

Crystal Palace winger Andros Townsend accused the Minister of Health of seeking to "divert attention" from the underfunding of the NHS (the local health system), while Newcastle international side Danny Rose , even dropped a "I don't give a damn about the morale of the nation, man, it's people's lives at stake", in a video on Instagram.

More than two months later, the controversy subsided. And the balloons are about to roll. Better still, the government's insistence on making certain matches visible to everyone could be a blessing for English football in the long run.

For the first time since the creation of the Premier League in 1992, the BBC will broadcast 4 matches, while the new entrant Amazon Prime and the free Sky channel will also offer matches without subscription.

This large exhibition could well rekindle the flame between football and its public.

© 2020 AFP