‘We could have been helped’

Championship football is set to resume on June 20 and Gills boss Steve Evans thinks they could have done the same with a little help from above.

The debate in League 1 was finally settled on Tuesday with clubs voting to curtail the season.

Many clubs were fearful of the costs involved in resuming play with the added extra of coronavirus testing – put at around £140,000 a team – seemingly pushing the majority towards being in favour of curtailment. Gills’ own chairman Paul Scally says it’s unaffordable to continue and Evans has questioned why a body like the PFA– the trade union for professional association footballers in England and Wales – couldn’t have stepped in to ease the burden.

“It could have been made easier,” said Evans. “The Premier League could have stepped in, the PFA with £60m in the bank could have stepped in, and said ‘listen League 1, we will pay for the testing, we will help you through this.’

“I am thinking we would all be playing on the 20th, along with the Championship.

“The PFA get a share of every players’ transfer and they are going to have 1,400 members out of contract at the end of

June. I thought their whole idea of a union was to protect their members.

“I know one thing, if I had £50m in the bank and someone in my family needed protecting, if they had a real problem and needed say £5m, I would pay it to fix it. You wouldn’t think about it. I think everyone reading this would say the same.”

Championship clubs have been testing their players and staff since returning to training and have started full contact training this week.

The EFL’s latest round of Covid-19 testing in the Championship saw 1,094 players and club staff from the 24 clubs tested over the course of three days (May 30-June 1) with nine individuals testing positive from six clubs.

In League 2, who agreed to end their regular season early, teams are still training in preparation of a potential play-off campaign.

Over the same three-day period there were 126 tests with no positive results from four clubs. With the Championship resuming, it means Charlton will be able to fight their relegation battle. But they will have to do it without three players, as they refused to return.

“I know two of them really well,” said Evans, who emphasised with the pair. “Chris Solly is a Kent boy, a real good player and real good lad, infact every time he has been overlapping while playing against my teams I have been desperate to trip him up.”