Premier League to use inspectors to enforce training rules
MANCHESTER, England, (Reuters) The social distancing restrictions in force for the Premier League’s return to training will be monitored by a team of inspectors to ensure clubs play by the new rules, the league’s director of football said yesterday.
Richard Garlick told reporters that the league would introduce unannounced visits to training grounds where, from tomorrow, small groups may conduct non-contact training.
“We can request information from videoing of the sessions and GPS data, too. We are also looking at bringing in our own independent audit inspection team that we’ll scale up over the next few days which will give us the ability to have inspections at training grounds to start with on a no-notice basis,” Garlick said.
Initially training sessions must be limited to 75 minutes and players can only work in groups of five players at the most.
A team which began contact training, large group training or which held longer sessions could gain an advantage over other clubs, which is why the league is going down the inspection route.
“Gradually, we aim to ramp that up so we can have an inspector at every training ground. That will enable us to give everyone confidence that the protocols are being complied with, and give the public confidence that we are trying to create a very safe working environment,” added Garlick.
The league’s medical adviser Mark Gillett said that Public Health England had told football not to expect any significant easing in the need for social distancing in the near future.
“They’ve made it very clear that the public health situation is not going to change over the next six to 12 months. In terms of social distancing and that cultural change we are asking footballers to make, I think we are going to face that for the foreseeable future,” he said.
Should the season re-start as planned in June, the league also hopes to have Liverpool receive the trophy in a ceremony, if as expected Juergen Klopp’s side, who are 25 points clear, capture their first league title in 30 years.
“If at all possible, yes. We would like to have a trophy presentation to give the players and staff the moment they have worked so hard for. We would try and do it unless it wasn’t possible because of safety concerns,” said chief executive Richard Masters.
Larry Nance Jr. wants to play basketball. If only an accurate measure of his personal risk could help guide his decision as to when it will be safe to return during the coronavirus pandemic.
Nance, who has Crohn’s disease and requires a treatment that significantly weakens his immune system, told ESPN yesterday that he’s working out in individual sessions at the team facility. When workouts shift to team work and potentially games that count, Nance said he’s hopeful the NBA is understanding of his condition.
“I would hope there would be an understanding [from the league] if someone didn’t feel comfortable coming back that’d you get a pass,” Nance said. “Just because you may look like the picture of health, some people have issues you can’t see.
“We’re young, and you know the kind of shape players are in, you’d like to think [the virus] wouldn’t be what it could be for others. But you don’t know. I’m still scared and don’t want to get it.”
At 19-46 when the NBA stopped games in March, the Cavaliers are well out of the playoff picture and in 15th place in the Eastern Conference. If the regular season resumes, the Cavs have just 17 games remaining. The longer the hiatus lingers, the less likely the NBA seems to be to include regular-season games in a returnto-play plan.
Nance requires occasional IV infusions of a drug that is proving helpful in fighting the coronavirus, ESPN reported.
“I’m paying super close attention to everything that is going on,” he said. “I was watching the German soccer league over the weekend and seeing how the players were interacting with each other and still seeing them make a lot of contact. I can’t even imagine being on one of those calls trying to hash this out. There’s so many ways to spread this.”
—Field Level Media