The Scot, who died in 1994, hardly knew what he had predicted. European football now generates more money than the continent’s publishing or cinema industries, David Golblatt points out in The Age of Football.

As the money has increased, the connection between football clubs and fans has decreased. Television – and the money it generates for the game – has exacerbated that disconnect, where fans now are no longer limited to locality.

Football clubs used to be the focus of the community, something Busby knew well and used to inspire his team talks.

“We’re in Trafford Park, the largest industrial estate in Europe. And the people that work there, when they finish work at the end of the week, they want to see something a little bit different and a little exciting,” Bobby Charlton said in 2007 of a Busby team talk when he made the first team.

“So you have the responsibility. The people that work on the shop floor, they’ve worked really hard, so you have to give them their little bit of entertainment.”

Of all the managers since Busby’s protégé Alex Ferguson, current manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is the most likely to have used similar sentiment. It is also likely that under his reign the club will become closer to its community than when football became flush with cash during Ferguson’s tenure.

That is the situation that the coronavirus pandemic has left the world game. It has hit pause and given everyone a chance to reconsider what is important. There is no football being played and it is unlikely that the English Premier League will return close to its restart date of April 30.

Football has reacted, as we have seen in Manchester. Both United and City have donated to local foodbanks. United’s Marcus Rashford has supported vulnerable local children, City boss Pep Guardiola donated US$1.1 million for medical supplies in Spain, and former United players Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville have offered their hotel to NHS workers.

Both clubs have vowed to pay their match-day staff for the outstanding matches, with United considering paying back season ticket holders. City have also offered their Etihad Stadium to the NHS, just as Watford have done.

Everton have been calling at-risk members of the community, as have Brighton. Both Brighton and Bournemouth have pledged tickets to health workers.

Such examples continue around England – up and down the leagues, such as at Championship side Leeds United where players, coaches and senior management have deferred their wages – and across the continent.

Juventus players, led by captain Giorgio Chiellini, have chosen not to take wages for four months, Barcelona players have taken a 70 per cent pay cut and donated 30,000 face masks.

Bayer Munich, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig and Bayer Leverkusen will make available US$22 million to support the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2. Many Bundesliga sides have deferred wages.

Individual players have made their own gestures of goodwill and there will be more, no doubt, just as there will be calls for football to come back as soon as possible in whatever form that might allow seasons to finish.

The bigger clubs need to make money with sponsorship and broadcast rights at risk – for the English Premier League that is up to US$924 million for the season, while match-day income accounted for around half of Manchester United’s US$773 million revenues in 2019. The CIES Football Observatory has reported that elite clubs could lose 28 per cent of the values of their players.

The finances involved show that football has underlying health issues and is at risk during this pandemic. Many lower league sides are at risk of going out of business, while out-of-contract players may struggle to find new clubs and staff are already going without wages.

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But this watershed moment is an opportunity for the industry, its clubs and more importantly its fans to reassess and realign its priorities. “We’ll come back from this stronger, better, kinder … and a little bit fatter,” said Guardiola.

Many social media users have shared comparisons of player wages with those of health workers on the front line, but fans need to vote with their wallets and stay away from future games, broadcast packages and merchandise if they mean business about seeing lasting change.

We don’t need to keep fattening football’s finances. If we decide, then Planet Football can be brought back down to earth.