BARRY FRY fears clubs will fold “like a pack of cards” if their seasons are not finished.
Peterborough’s larger-than-life director of football has never faced such a grim scenario in all of his 60 years in the game.
⚠️ Read our coronavirus in sport live blog for the latest news & updates
Barry Fry is worried football clubs will fold if the season isn’t finished due to coronavirus
But Fry, who celebrated his 75th birthday on Tuesday, told SunSport: “I fear for the future of the game.”
League One promotion-chasing Posh, like many smaller clubs, are fighting to survive as coronavirus takes a stranglehold on sport.
It comes after FA chairman Greg Clarke warned English football could be “decimated” by the crisis.
Like everyone, Fry totally accepts the lockdown because saving lives and protecting NHS staff comes a long way ahead of football matches.
But he does not hold back his feelings about what might lie ahead if teams cannot fulfil their fixtures.
Fry said: “We just want to get back playing matches and what I hear from the Premier League, EFL and the FA everyone wants to finish the season, which is good.
“That’s because there are so many repercussions if we don’t. All our sponsors are entitled to have some of their money back — and we’ve spent it!
“That would put a lot of clubs out of business overnight and it would be like a pack of cards folding, to be honest.
“I have been in football since I was 15 and I’ve never experienced anything like this before. To see any club fold would break my heart.”
After this talk of Premier League clubs putting their staff on furlough, if they go out this summer and spend £100m on a player that won’t sit well with the public.
Barry Fry
Fry reckons football as we know it will never be the same again when the players get back on the turf.
Even the major powers in the game, he believes, will have to make big adjustments to how they spend their money after this.
Fry added: “After this talk of Premier League clubs putting their staff on furlough, if they go out this summer and spend £100million on a player that won’t sit well with the public.
“And you couldn’t blame the fans for being upset, either, when you think of the worrying state the country, and the world, is in where people are losing their lives.
“Seeing somebody spend £100m on a player will be viewed as obscene and I certainly understand all that.
“I think there will be a period of transition and when everything gets back on track there will be wheeling and dealing in the transfer market again.
“But I think a lot of clubs will look long and hard how they spend their money and won’t sail as close to the wind as they used to.
“I think we’ve all got to be very sensible when we go back and our budgets cannot involve paying over the top for a player.”
Fry admitted his club could lose out on the transfer market when the game resumes.
One Premier League side offered Posh £10m, spread over three-and-a-half years, for top scorer Ivan Toney in the January window.
Barry Fry has called coronavirus a ‘kick in the b*****ks’
‘KICK IN THE B*****KS’
Fry said: “He’s got 26 goals and without him we’ve got no chance of going up.
“He’s not only a great goalscorer but he’s our best defender — he heads more balls away from our box than our back four combined!
“There were three or four clubs in for him in January and £10m was tempting. But we knew our fans would lose heart if he sold him then.
“We spoke to the player and his agent and told them we were going to turn the offer down but, if we went up, we would offer him a lucrative contract or sell him.
“We were looking good for promotion, sixth in the table, scoring lots of goals and then this virus came out of the blue and kicked us in the b*****ks!
“We are all in this together. But it will be a different game when we come back for sure as no one can predict how it will go at all.”
The former Barnet, Southend and Birmingham chief has been a wheeler and dealer all his life.
But the OAP has also put his hands in his own pockets to help out his beloved Posh — much to the annoyance of his loyal wife of 42 years, Kristine.
Fry, who has suffered two heart attacks, once mortgaged his family home AND his mother-in-law’s when he owned Peterborough.
And before Covid-19 struck he re-mortgaged his house again to raise £500,000 for a 4G pitch for Peterborough’s youth team.
Give now to The Sun’s NHS appeal
BRITAIN’s four million NHS staff are on the frontline in the battle against coronavirus.
But while they are helping save lives, who is there to help them?
The Sun has launched an appeal to raise £1MILLION for NHS workers.
The Who Cares Wins Appeal aims to get vital support to staff in their hour of need.
We have teamed up with NHS Charities Together in their urgent Covid-19 Appeal to ensure the money gets to exactly who needs it.
The Sun is donating £50,000 and we would like YOU to help us raise a million pounds, to help THEM.
No matter how little you can spare, please donate today here
www.thesun.co.uk/whocareswinsappeal
Fry explained: “We had cash- flow problems at the time and the lease was up on the ground so I got a loan from Barclays with security on my house.
“My missus has been very supportive over the years but she wasn’t so happy this time round.
“But she knows how much Peterborough United means to me and she backs every decision even though it could cost her and the children if it all went wrong.
“I, perhaps, shouldn’t have put her in that situation but I am lucky to have a woman that backs my judgment.
“We’ve been together 42 years and I don’t think she’s going to kick me out now.”
Premier League ‘to release statement ending season’ due to coronavirus uncertainty, claims Serie A chief Marino
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
