Thanks Zeus, from your reply, I'll say that I'm genuinely impressed that there's a lot of people who are able to see the big picture in that sense, if that's where most of the sentiment is coming from. One thing I wanted to ask though, based on this particular bit on what you've said:
Would it not be less emotive, but equally accurate, to say that the money is being used to help a business going through a difficult time? It would be one thing if the club were in a business that was not affected by the current situation financially, say if it was in the medical sector. But the club like most other businesses in the current times, is probably taking a loss, and are just using the support provided by the government to mitigate that loss. It's a bit of a grey line in that sense. But is there a reason it shouldn't be treated like any other business facing difficulties? Does it make sense to judge a business on its entitlement to aid based on criteria such as how well run and financially sound they are, etc?
LFC are not going through a difficult time, certainly in comparison to many other businesses in other sectors (or compared to other football clubs, of which all but 6 in the world are poorer than LFC, and most have not yet felt the need to do similar).
I've estimated in this thread - and I'm happy to debate the numbers - that
we have already received 90%-95% of our usual seasonal income.
If there were to be a prolonged outage and - say - the season were to be annulled, we might (according to reports) have to repay maybe another 10-15% of that income. But if that were to happen, further cost-saving measures (preferably agreed commonly across clubs) would be justified. The wages of the members of staff currently under discussion for furloughing represent something less than 2.5% of LFC's turnover.
So the point here is whether a profitable business currently experiencing a 5%-10% fall in income is justified in using taxpayers' money to offset a tiny proportion of its costs.
It's not just football. Virgin Atlantic and Easyjet and others faced huge criticism for initially making staff take upto 50% unpaid leave over the coming three months. Yet those (usually profitable) businesses (and others) are facing
total loss of income during their peak sales period (on a 3 month shutdown, potentially 40-50% of their annual business), and are trying to offset much higher wage costs affecting many more employees (tens of thousands, not a couple of hundred) via the scheme.
Virgin founder Richard Branson has been told to put his hand in his own pocket to pay his staff and criticised for seeking assistance, because he's a billionaire and sued the NHS when he (one of his companies) wasn't awarded a contract and pays no tax in the UK. Yet those staff wages are in the tens of millions every month, not the ~£700k we're talking about for currently furloughed employees at LFC. Virgin Atlantic pays UK tax, as do its tens of thousands of employees. Branson doesn't personally own Virgin Atlantic outright. His relationship to Virgin Atlantic isn't dissimilar to Henry's to LFC; their personal wealth is comparable. The difference is that VA is suffering a much greater impact from COVID-19 than LFC are.
Airlines, holiday operators, hoteliers, hospitality companies, cinemas, etc are facing existential threats to their businesses. LFC just aren't. As things stand, it's little more than a minor irritation. Even an annulment of the season wouldn't cause the devastating financial losses that many other businesses are already dealing with.
