Tottenham Hotspur’s potentially aborted European campaign could simply be a symptom of ‘too much football’ - Stuart Rayner

That Spurs face being thrown out of the Europa Conference League because they and Rennes were unable to find a spare date before UEFA’s arbitrary deadline shows where football is at the moment. Whether Europe’s governing body will apply some commonsense (stop sniggering at the back) and realise there is no need for the final group game to be played by December 31 when the next round is not until mid-February we shall have to wait and see.

It could be the second time in this pandemic a Covid-hit team has been thrown out of a cup competition because Spurs did not have space in their diary to play. On the previous occasion, Leyton Orient were chucked out of the League Cup following an outbreak at Brisbane Road. Their opponents, Tottenham, were bogged down in the Europa League that time. It is not Spurs’ fault. They should not be punished for some of their players catching the virus, any more than the Os should have been last season, or Harrogate Town when they were turfed out of this season’s League Cup.

Whether Spurs would have tried harder to find a new date were they not in the most lowly-regarded European competition since Bradford City qualified for the InterToto Cup by narrowly avoiding Premier League relegation and thereby becoming the highest-ranked English team (with Aston Villa) who could be bothered is unclear, but they should not have had to.

The month is halfway through and they still have a League Cup quarter-final, plus matches against Leicester City tonight (fingers crossed), Liverpool, Crystal Palace and Southampton to squeeze in.

They are already two matches behind in the Premier League thanks to the virus and the British weather. It never rains but it snows. If they are able to stay in the Conference League, the possibility of the sort of fixture pile-up which ultimately did for Rotherham’s Championship hopes last season remains. Maybe if it happens to Spurs rather than the Millers, somebody could take notice. Actually doing something about it might be asking too much though.

This sort of fixture congestion happened all the time back in the day when men were men and pitches were mudbaths.

In 1972, Leeds United played a title decider just over 48 hours after winning the FA Cup. It was not right then, and is certainly not right now when the players chasing after one another are no longer slowed by large quantities of alcohol and tobacco.

We pay modern players extraordinary wages to get extraordinary fitness levels. We risk getting worn-out footballers going through the motions because, in chasing money, the game has created a fixture list with no wriggle room when things go wrong. Pitches are so good nowadays few matches get postponed for the weather but there is not much you can do about the snowstorm which hit Burnley a fortnight ago.

As Spurs and Rotherham can attest, the teams who get hit by Covid call-offs have a habit of running into bad weather too. It is called Sod’s Law.

So what is being done? Nothing. Actually, that is not fair. UEFA are increasing the number of Champions League matches to squeeze the last few drips of fat out of the golden goose. Jealous, FIFA is cooking up its own plans for more paydays. Domestic associations are under unspoken pressure to scale back their cups and/or leagues and will not. What are you going to do about it?

Five weeks will be taken out of next season for a winter World Cup. The Premier League has helpfully extended its campaign... by a week either end. You do not need to be Carol Vorderman to know that does not add up. Championship clubs will play through the knockout stages and Leagues One and Two the whole lot – unless teams get three players called up, in which case they can postpone games and then... goodness only knows.

We really hope this will be the last season disrupted by Covid-19 postponements, but we probably thought that this time last year.

Leeds United’s Marcelo Bielsa had it right when he talked about this in the autumn. There is too much football.