Football pays price for taking eye off the ball

the players as a group. The percentage of players testing positive remains small. Nevertheless, there is an increasing threat to the start of the new season, while Gareth Southgate looks as if he will have a depleted England squad available when his players convene next week for the first time in 10 months. Largely, this is because the sport has taken its eye off the ball. There can be no other explanation. Some players will have been unlucky, others less so. Players sharing sun loungers and bar stools in Mediterranean resorts need to read the Covid rule book more closely. Meanwhile, those heading to destinations on the UK quarantine list cannot complain if supporters who pay their wages presume that they simply do not care enough to stay at home. Football’s mindset must go back to where it was in the first days of lockdown. Back then some players declared themselves sufficiently unnerved by the threat of infection to consider not going back to training. Football was aware of Covid in April, May and June and quickly needs to realise that not much has significantly changed. The game may get away with this latest outbreak. The Premier League season is not due to start until two weeks tomorrow, by which time this week’s surge may well have levelled off. But if Boris Johnson’s Government is in need of a new message with which to remind the British public of this ongoing crisis, football may just have written one in very large letters.