ANALYSIS: The Wellington Phoenix are still paying their players and staff, which is more than can be said for most of their fellow A-League clubs right now, but a financial crunch is coming.

They aren't allowed to unilaterally stand their employees down the way some of their competitors across the Tasman have, but it's nevertheless a welcome sign in these uncertain times.

The question is, as it is for everyone affected by the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, what comes next?

As things stand, the 2019-20 A-League season is on hold until April 22, just over three weeks from now, when the situation will be assessed, but it is hard to see that assessment clearing the way for an immediate resumption.

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Any effort to finish the season in the short-to-medium term would almost certainly require the Phoenix to base themselves in Sydney, as they were doing before Australia and New Zealand ramped up their response to the pandemic and continuing to play became unfeasible.

HAGEN HOPKINS/GETTY IMAGES The Wellington Phoenix are one of the few A-League clubs still making payments to players and staff.

That six-night stay ended in ignominy when defender Tim Payne was charged with a drink-driving offence after taking a golf cart for a joyride along with team-mate Oli Sail, at a time when they were suppose to be quarantined.

A further sting in the tail was revealed four days later, when the club confirmed a report that a staff member had tested positive for Covid-19 after returning home.

Those developments are sure to make a repeat difficult – if not impossible – and the more likely scenario is that everyone bunkers down, waits for the crisis to pass, then decides how to move forward.

Ideally, they would do that together, but developments across the Tasman this week suggest the A-League is divided more than it is united right now.

Adelaide United, Brisbane Roar, Central Coast Mariners, Newcastle Jets, Perth Glory, Western Sydney Wanderers and Western United moved to stand their players and staff down without pay.

The league's three richest clubs – Melbourne City, Melbourne Victory, and Sydney FC – are standing strong, for now at least, joined by the Phoenix, who operate in a different legal context.

At the heart of these decisions is uncertainty over whether money from the AU$57 million-a-year ($NZ58.5 million) broadcast deal between Football Federation Australia and Fox Sports will continue to be received, amid reports that the next AU$900,000 payment to clubs might not be made.

Professional Footballers Australia chief John Didulica has called on Fox to provide clarity while promising to fight to have players reinstated at their clubs, and there was a hint of unity late on Friday, when the PFA and the Australia Professional Clubs Association announced they would "commence discussions to seek common ground on the issues that confront all clubs and player groups in the country at present".

The Phoenix have been mostly silent since the team returned from Sydney last Tuesday – only Payne has been heard from, giving a pair of apologetic interviews once his misadventures were made public.

There have been a couple of short statements – including the one confirming the staff member's positive test – but otherwise they've been beavering away in private on the nature of their response.

It is understandable, given the uncertainty that abounds, but notable when most of the country's other professional sports franchises and national sports organisations have been communicating about what's going on.

Requests to speak to chairman Rob Morrison or general manager David Dome have been declined – but something Dome said in mid-February, when coronavirus was just a thing happening in China, feels portentous now.

He was speaking to Stuff about the club's ambitions to run a women's team – which were closer to fruition than ever before, but could be one of the casualties of the current crisis – and about how they were in need of commercial partners to ease the burden on the Welnix ownership group, which Morrison heads.

"You can never have enough money," Dome said.

"The owners are still putting in quite a lot of money to keep this thing going from week to week, which as a general manager is not what I want to say.

"We're trying our best to close that gap so that we don't have to continue paying to keep this thing going."

It was a nice sentiment, but seven weeks later, it feels like a relic of the distant past. There will be sacrifices and tough decisions to be made, but there will also have to be money put in.

Morrison and the other investors in Welnix have kept professional football in New Zealand alive over the past nine years, since they dug deep into their pockets to take over from Terry Serepisos in 2011.

This unprecedented crisis has struck just as they were beginning to be rewarded for their time and money, with the Phoenix a genuine title contender for the first time in five years, and playing as well as they had at any stage of their existence.

The club might receive support from elsewhere, including potentially from the government, which signalled its intentions to act on Friday, but the club's owners might have to dig deeper still.