Coming on top of the recent sports rorts activity by the current federal government, the huge amounts of money allocated by the NSW Government for three stadiums to be used by at least three of the football codes and then the allocation of $12 million for a building at Penrith Leagues Club that was not actually to be used for sport, the sheer presumption by rugby league that it could demand "assistance via the public purse is just offensive," as Bob Edgar said in a letter to the newspaper on the same day.

Edgar went further: "Whatever the merits of the code itself, it exists solely as a vehicle for generating obscene profits to enable even more obscene salaries for executives, players and hangers on. Mark Pascal, of Clovelly added: "The survival of rugby league is the furthest thing from anyone's mind". Indeed, in another direction just why did it take the Olympic International Committee so long to postpone this year's event when it was so painfully obvious there was a global pandemic on our hands?

Kevin Eadie, of Drumoyne, writing to The SMH about the same time said: "Is there no limit to the avarice of the football codes? They get billions of dollars of taxpayers' money for new stadiums, sometimes built on public open spaces, while other forms of entertainment have to buy their own land and build their own facilities".

Many commentators, writers and even the odd politician have suggested the pandemic, on current indications, has the capacity to change the way in which we may live our life.

Why rugby league's obsession about a government handout at this time has roused the anger of many, is that the health, welfare and, importantly, the capacity to survive the virus is (certainly as I write this) paramount in the decisions coming from the National Crisis Cabinet - as it should be.

Another writer, Valerie Reynolds of Greenwich alluded to a rugby league official's belief that Australia would not be Australia without football, saying: "He must be joking. Australia wouldn't be Australia without governments whose responsibility is for the health and wellbeing of its citizens."

Team sports and those who play and administer them at the supreme level, including football codes and cricket, without question have enjoyed enormous salaries - some players in excess of a million dollars annually, and league players who averaged in excess of $370,000 in the top competitions last year.

It is worth recording here that I spent many years reporting, broadcasting and administrating rugby league and spent many enjoyable, even memorable times doing it all, but I recall a time when smaller towns became unable to match the cost of "buying" a team to compete with the wealthier.

Money does not buy sports promulgation. Personally, my belief is that sports promotion with all its so-called business-like reform of sports bodies has not induced or supported great improvements in playing standards and especially not, judging from the financial collapse of codes and sports since the virus hit, in the way they are financially managed.

If that's an example of private enterprise's financial management and engagement practices then bring back those times when football and cricket competitions were run by delegates from each club in a competition, and promotional and expansion ideas came from the men and women delegates.

Sport, like so many aspects of life during the period of this pandemic, and as has been alluded to by politicians, economists, scientists, philosophers, writers and journalists in the short few weeks of its life, is likely to undergo more changes of direction than we may ever have contemplated when it is all over.

In that regard, and especially in relation to the Olympics, Tokyo's stadium will still be there, ready to go and perhaps it might be the time the IOF decrees that rather than impose on future host nations to cough up billions for new stadiums that, instead, we re-roster previous hosts to hold them again to help mitigate the economic fallout of the virus on the economies of the world.