Yes -if they can't do that then how can they play at all? I think this is something that has been missed in some of the discussion. Lower league football is surely stuffed if it can't get paying specators through the door. Mothballing (to the extent that is possible) until spectators come back is surely the only possible option.
I'm beginning to think that many of our discussions about return maybe completely offbeam here. If they can't fans through the door, we could be talking no lower league football until August/September 2021. As Epping points out, I just don't see what the financial model is that would sustain a professional game in the lower leagues without fans.
If someone could come up with a 'good' scenario for the EFL - I'd love to hear it.
The stark reality is that we're going to lose a lot of EFL Clubs over the next 9 months unless some action is taken.
The only way I think they could be kept going is with loans from the EFL. Begs the question of how they're going to pay it back when nearly all Clubs run at a loss!
Perhaps the EFL actually does their job of governance (LOL) and initiates a salary cap. That would enable Clubs to actually operate at a profit and be in a position to pay back the loan.
IMHO in this scenario Clubs breaking the salary cap should be expelled from the league.
The only other alternative I can think of... (apart from letting go of all players who's contracts are up in June), is for players to take a 50% pay cut (or whatever the number is) until they actually start playing again. There are going to be a very small number of Clubs who could survive paying full wages to players until football does finally re-start.
Surely if players insist on full pay - they risk the Club going under and actually receiving nothing.
This gets worse the more you think about it.
Someone tell me I'm wrong.