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Roman Abramovich and Gary Neville show it's good to be nice … Branson's motto? Screw everyone! – Daily Mail, Dailymail.co.uk

Roman Abramovich and Gary Neville show it's good to be nice … Branson's motto? Screw everyone! – Daily Mail, Dailymail.co.uk

We would all like to be a quid or two behind Roman Abramovich. The difference with Sir Richard Branson – he actually is.

Abramovich’s wealth was estimated at £ 17 .2 billion by the Sunday Times in May , Branson’s at £ 4. 10 billion. It seems a little short, but once a man is counting his billions, even on the fingers of one hand, it is fair to assume he will never want again.

So Branson, who is welcome in Britain, could have been every bit as public-spirited and generous as Abramovich, who has been made very very welcome, in the face of the coronavirus outbreak. He just chose not to be.

Richard Branson asked the 8, 571 staff of Virgin Airlines to take eight weeks unpaid leave

He was not even munificent as Gary Neville, who has estimated earnings in the region of £ 23 million, through his work as a footballer, coach, broadcaster and businessman. If Branson woke up to find he had as much in the bank as Neville, he might throw himself out of the window of one of his planes, but you would rather have Neville as your boss this week.

On Thursday he made a brief announcement about his two hotels in Manchester, Hotel Football, near Old Trafford, and the Stock Exchange Hotel. While the premises will be closed, he said, no staff will be made redundant or asked to take unpaid leave. Instead, the beds will be offered, free of charge, to doctors, nurses and health workers.

Abramovich, meanwhile, will foot the bill for health workers to stay overnight at his Millennium Hotel at Stamford Bridge, if they are unable to commute due to the scaling back of public transport. Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and the Royal Brompton are both nearby.

Now to Branson, whose response to the coronavirus crisis was to ask the 8, 677 staff of Virgin Airlines to take eight weeks unpaid leave. Here are the maths on that. A worker taking unpaid leave in the current climate is entitled to government statutory sick pay of £ 104 per week. To take that for eight weeks amounts to £ 900. If all 8, 677 workers claimed it, the total cost to the Government would be £ 6. m .

Money this country can scarcely afford but is paying because a man worth billions cannot rise to the occasion and do the right thing by his employees. To cover the statutory sick pay would require 0. 19 per cent of Branson’s worth. Hell, to give them all £ 5, 06 each as cover across those eight weeks would cost him 1. (per cent.)

Roman Abramovich will pay for health workers to stay overnight at his Millennium Hotel

It is the difference between a man being worth £ 4, 81, , and £ 4,0 , , , or between worth of £ 4, 90, , and £ 4, , , 600. Either way, he is worth £ 4bn. And if all those noughts are making your eyes boggle, let’s try it another way.

The average wage in this country is £ , . And £ of that is Branson’s equivalent of meeting statutory sick pay; £ 301 would be giving employees amply enough to live on. And remember that is annual salary not a lifetime of accumulation. So it is £ 043 of your life’s earnings; £ 301 over half a century .

So it is very easy to say that Neville, or Abramovich, have got the money to be nice. It is the key line from the film Parasite. ‘She’s rich, but still nice,’ says chauffeur Ki-taek of the lady of the house. ‘She’s nice because she is rich,’ Chung-sook, his wife, replies. ‘Hell, if I had all this money, I’d be nice too.’

But you wouldn’t, not necessarily. There are plenty of wealthy people like Branson who have loaded responsibility on to the government rather than shouldering it themselves, plenty of public figures carefully honing their brand images with pledges and promises that are not being kept in reality.

Expect the publicity-conscious Branson to make some self-serving gesture in the coming days, now he sees the flak coming his way, at a raw moment when his actions will never be forgotten.

This is not a good time to be part of the problem, particularly as a billionaire. Richard Fuller, the Conservative MP for North Bedfordshire, has already called Branson out in Parliament this week. In 2010, when Russia won the right to host the 2019 World Cup, President Vladimir Putin was asked how his country would pay for such an enormous event so soon after the Sochi Olympics. He turned to his friend, Abramovich, the financial patron of the Russia national team, sitting in the front row.

‘I don’t rule out that Mr Abramovich may take part in one of these projects , ‘Putin said. Let him open his wallet a little. It’s no big deal – he won’t feel the pinch. He has plenty of money. ‘

Abramovich howled with laughter but no doubt duly wrote the check exactly as requested – because it’s true. He does have plenty of money, and so does Neville and his hotel partner Ryan Giggs. But they don’t have to be good, or even nice.

‘Screw it, let’s just do it,’ is Branson’s business motto. This time, however, it seems he has decided to screw everybody, and leave it to someone else.

Gary Neville said beds from his two Manchester hotels will be freely available for NHS workers

Juventus chief and his monstrous plans mustn ‘ t grind us down

Developers get building projects through because they wear objectors down. They resubmit and resubmit, and make the smallest alterations, until ultimately the resistance is exhausted by the whole process and the plans sneak through.

Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli is adopting a similar approach to his blueprint for ruining European club football.

He is now in retreat from his idea of ​​making the Champions League a closed shop but has tweaked this scheme so it is almost as bad. Agnelli now accepts clubs must qualify for European competitions through domestic performances rather than historic participation – but wants to allocate clubs to each competition governed by their co-efficient over five years. So, if Chelsea came fourth this season, as regular participants in the Champions League they would take their place in the blue riband event; but if Sheffield United came fourth they could find themselves demoted to the Europa League, having no European pedigree, while a fifth-placed Tottenham or Manchester United would be elevated in their place.

This is another monstrous plan to cement a useless elite in superior positions, whether they perform or not, and should be resisted as rigorously as Agnelli’s last bad idea. We will have to remain vigilant, though, because this creep comes up with one a day.

National League’s big dilemma

The National League were widely condemned for continuing to play last weekend when the rest of football was postponed.

‘The National League is a disgrace,’ said Alan Devonshire, manager of Maidenhead United. ‘F football clubs, lives are at stake.’

Ben Strevens, manager of Eastleigh, was equally damning. ‘The reason National League games went ahead and Premier League and EFL games did not because whoever sits on the board of the National League cared about money,’ he said. ‘Simple as that.’

The National League was criticized for allowing games to continue as normal last weekend

Yet it isn’t quite as simple as that. Within hours of the National League being formally suspended on Monday, Barnet had put their entire non-playing staff and head coach Darren Currie on notice.

No doubt this was the type of information National League executives were fielding when making the decision to play one last weekend.

Barnet lose roughly £ , a month, and that is with gate money. Without it, the impact was quickly felt. And austerity kills, as surely as illness, which is why the Government has spent the week trying to find ways to prop up the economy.

Each day, another industry announces it will collapse without Government intervention – the hospitality trade, freelance sports journalism, rugby league, airlines, horseracing – we could fill a page with a list of the sectors in crisis.

So it was not greed that forced the National League into this judgment.

It was a desperate feeling of necessity and dread of the short-term future.Right or wrong, a degree of understanding is also due.

West Indies plan makes far more sense than French Open farce

What coronavirus is very quickly sorting out is the quality of sports administrators.

Johnny Grave, chief executive of Cricket West Indies, seems a smart individual. His idea, to play the summer series against England in the Caribbean rather than on these shores displayed impressive common sense.

It was a quick-fix solution, easy to resolve. The West Indies has largely avoided the coronavirus outbreak so far, and Grave clearly believed venues could be made available at short notice – as happened in Antigua in 2009 when a poor pitch forced the abandonment of a Test against England at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium after balls, only for it to be played at the Recreation Ground in St John’s four days later .

West Indies have offered Joe Root’s England to tour the Caribbean this summer

The three Tests were due for June, so could have been scheduled early enough in the summer to beat the Caribbean’s hurricane season, and reshooting the location then made considerably more sense than, for instance, delaying the Tests until September, in this country.

We still have no idea where Britain will be at that stage, and while it is possible the most draconian conditions could be lifted, it remains equally conceiva ble that Europe will be yo-yoing between a return to normality and lockdown, each time the coronavirus graph fluctuates.

As the ECB’s prime concern appears financial, Grave even confirmed that the original hosts would retain all commercial and broadcast rights. It seemed an eminently fair and sensible offer, which is why it bit the dust within hours.

England might go to the West Indies, but not until December, the fixtures sandwiched between the Twenty World Cup in Australia in November, and five Tests in India in January.

Equally, there has been a degree of mockery of Australian Rules Football, which began as scheduled on Thursday, Richmond beating Carlton – 90. Fun has been made of the ocker attitudes of the AFL, playing on when others cower beneath their duvets. Yet, on closer inspection, the AFL took all available precautions.

The game was played before an empty, echoing MCG, with spectators banned, the season has been reduced from rounds to 20 and if a single player contracts coronavirus the AFL have confirmed the campaign will be instantly paused. So not thick-headed after all. Rather sensible, in fact.

Bringing us neatly to the organisers of French Open tennis, who have managed to self-isolate, not so much with coronavirus, but by ticking off everybody else in the sport. An announcement this week arbitrarily switched the tournament from May-June to September-October, starting the week after the US Open and trampling on the dates for the Laver Cup, which has already sold out its Boston venue.

Judging by the reaction, there was no consultation with the Association of Tennis Professionals, the Women’s Tennis Association, the International Tennis Federation and most certainly not with the organizers of the Laver Cup, which is trying to build an audience and status as the tennis equivalent of the Ryder Cup.

To act in such an autocratic manner at a time of global crisis is insulting. It is also a gamble that may not pay off.

The French Open has been criticized for rescheduling the Grand Slam without consultation

Clay is an exacting surface and requires significant preparation. To shoehorn a major on clay in the middle of the hard court season may not prove a great attraction beyond clay specialists. The rest will feel they have no chance anyway.

And we sympathise with the French Open’s problems. The venue has recently invested in roof cover. Plans will not have countenanced a season without a major tournament at Roland Garros. Yet there are ways to adapt, and all involve consultation.

To deliver a unilateral plan does not show strength or leadership, but pure panic. It risks splitting tennis, with players having to pick a side, or alienating the Federation Francaise de Tennis from the rest of their sport at a time when unity and solidarity is paramount. Either is poor leadership.

This crisis is finding a few out.

In isolation? Listen to 1988 hours of genius weatherall

As part of a tailored service for these dark days, the End Times Sports Column will continue providing diverting recommendations for those in isolation.

This week: the Weatherdrive. For readers who found Monday’s 22 – minute opus by Prefab Sprout too short, here are 1988 hours of DJ sets by the magnificent, the unique, the taken too soon Andrew Weatherall.

This is a Google Drive folder containing sub folders spanning his career from early raves in 1988 to a quite brilliant beatless mix for NTS in January this year.

Cassettes made for friends, studio mixes, club gigs and radio shows are all included, although those whose covid – 22 symptoms include a raging headache may wish to gently skirt what his lordship would call the ‘absolutely full-knacker, proper panel beaters from Prague,’ ere we go, techno ‘years.

You’ll know them when you hear them. Stay fit.


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