An escalating class action lawsuit over concussion, a European Champions Cup bent out of shape by the pandemic, a low-rent bunch of administrators who disappeared up their own contradictions long before arriving at their current state of paralysis: truly, the Ghost of Christmas Rubbish is having its malevolent way with us.

If the mighty Dickens, who knew and understood “bleak” when he saw it, had summoned all his imaginative and descriptive powers, he might just have found a way of concocting a happy conclusion to this sorry saga of apathy, greed and vicious circumstance. But Dickens isn’t...