Project Restart is a fine balancing act, but the final decision MUST now rest with players
DON’T penalise footballers who refuse to take part in Project Restart if they don’t feel safe.
If the Premier League does resume next month – and there appears to be serious momentum towards that happening – I would relax the rule restricting clubs to 25-man squads so there is adequate cover for any players who don’t want to play.
Time to press the restart button or time to hang fire?
I can see both sides of the argument. It’s both a sporting and a moral dilemma.
The final say about joining Project Restart MUST rest with the players.
With testing programmes being set up and Government approval for professional football to come back, clubs will be going to great lengths to create a sterile environment.
Can they offer 100 per cent safety? No – but there isn’t a profession in the world that can offer guaranteed safety.
What I do know, when I look around me at everyday signs of life – on building sites, in food stores, on the roads – is that the country appears to be ready to loosen the shackles of lockdown.
Is the return of football worth a single life? Of course not.
Coronavirus is still claiming hundreds of casualties every day and sport cannot camouflage so much heartbreak around us.
But the football industry makes a significant contribution to the economy.
The Premier League generates nearly £4billion a year in tax – and some of that tax goes towards supporting the NHS and our front-line staff.
After talking to people in and around the game, about 80 or 90 per cent of players on the books at New Era Global Sports – 100 players at all levels – are now prepared to comply with all the safety directives, the testing regime and make a phased return to training.
I understand the reservations of people like Watford captain Troy Deeney when he says: “The Government say we can go back to work from June 1 but we can’t get a haircut until midjuly. We’re doing all this testing to get footballers back to work and then the NHS, care workers and the people on the front line don’t have enough tests – How do you justify that?”
Deeney only became a father again in December, so I understand his first instinct is to shield his young family from a virus – and good on him. Family comes first.
For balance, Wolves captain Conor Coady says playing behind closed doors is “not the most ideal situation” – but he understands it is necessary if football is to make a return.
I accept it’s got to be the players’ prerogative if they don’t want to play and they exercise their option not to take part in Project Restart.
But after my former club doctor, Tim Stevenson, said in last week’s column that football would only be ready to come back when we reach a tipping point where the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, I do sense that we are closer to that tipping point.
You can’t wait until a vaccine for Covid-19 is found – because scientists may never find one.
And if ‘safety’ means a new level of normality, we need to accept the new ‘normal’ will be different.
This is not just about the Premier League. I know – in fact, I have categorical proof – that kids are struggling with their mental health about not being able to play. From now on, normality must include the mental well-being of players high on the agenda.
As a player, if I was asked to lock down in a hotel for six weeks, away from my family and in a sterile environment where there was no contact with the public, I think I would be prepared to do it.
England cricketers have been doing it for years on tours of countries where there were security concerns. In a hotel, you can take your own chef, your own medical staff and create your own sterile ‘bubble’.
In Germany, an hour’s flying time from here, the Bundesliga returns today – behind closed doors – and all eyes will be on the way they handle football’s comeback after two months.
They are obviously paying close attention to detail because Augsburg coach Heiko Herrlich was banned for breaking quarantine by leaving his team’s hotel to buy toothpaste.
And one study, undertaken by a company who provide GPS monitoring vests to clubs, suggests close contact between Premier League players in training lasts just 3.3 seconds on average – lower than the threshold for contracting coronavirus.
Of course, all this is dependant on players being tested frequently – and I understand the arguments against footballers having access to tests ahead of front-line NHS workers, but that is for the Government to sort out.
Yes, I recognise there is the issue of some players being out of contract after June 30. But we should be able to resolve that with a common-sense approach to extending existing deals for a month on the same terms.
And yes, players need a period of training to get matchfit again. Three weeks is ample preparation because the vast majority will have been training at home to keep in good shape.
But I would be horrified if the Premier League resumes and a club took disciplinary action against a player for refusing to play. At what stage is it safe?
As long as clubs follow the safety protocols, it may need to restart soon – otherwise we may not see football for the rest of this year, or next, unless a vaccine is found. These are not normal circumstances. We live in exceptional times.
Football needs to restart soon.. or we may not see it again this year
THE PANDEMIC has brought out the best in football’s generosity and England captain Harry Kane can take a bow for capturing the mood perfectly.
Kane’s gesture of paying a six-figure sum for Leyton Orient’s shirt sponsorship and donating the space to three good causes (left), is a wonderful way of repaying the club who gave him his first start in professional football (far left). Hats off to you, Harry.
And there are plenty more good souls in football where he came from.