ABUSE OF PRIVILEGE
Leitch warns that football will pay heavy price for any more breaches of Covid-19 rules after Bolingoli and Aberdeen Eight’s actions
PROFESSOR Jason Leitch has warned Scottish football it will lose its ‘privileged’ status if there is one more breach of coronavirus protocol. In midweek, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she was issuing a yellow card to the sport after eight Aberdeen players and Celtic defender Boli Bolingoli were caught defying advice.
Images of the eight Aberdeen players disobeying the rules as they socialised in a crowded city-centre bar emerged after the first weekend of the season.
They were quickly followed by news of Bolingoli’s clandestine trip to Spain, which flouted rules on travel. He also failed to observe government quarantine advice as he appeared as a substitute at Rugby Park last weekend.
Leitch, Scotland’s national clinical director, doubled down on Sturgeon’s position yesterday, highlighting the fact that, as a non-essential industry, competitive football had been granted special dispensation to resume at the start of the month.
He said: ‘This might sound a bit harsh. Some footballers and those connected to football clubs won’t like it. But we are in a global pandemic and I have just looked up the global numbers — 21million infected, 765,000 dead.
‘When you shut down the country, which we did on March 23, we kept essential businesses open. We kept the lights on, kept supermarkets open. Football is not an essential business. That’s harsh if you are the catering manager at Livingston trying to make a living.
‘Now, as we reopen society, some bits open before others and it’s a scale of essentialness.
‘Football is not an essential business, you don’t need it to run the country. Therefore, from safety perspectives, football has been given special privileges.
‘Football has been allowed to get back to work before other things. Offices and call centres are not back. Football was allowed to come back on the basis that it followed the guidelines religiously.
‘It appears that some people within football have not done that. So there is a price to pay in the form of a pause to make sure footballers understand that.
‘We’ve used the football metaphor of the yellow card. The red card is available.’
While there were no complaints from either Celtic or Aberdeen following the postponement of their Premiership fixtures over the past week, there has been a backlash to the edict that will prevent teams lower down the SPFL pyramid training from tomorrow until August 24.
Already smarting from their relegation after an incomplete season, Hearts have reacted furiously to being told to halt their regime after starting back under new boss Robbie Neilson earlier this month.
Leitch insists the latest decision was ultimately made by the SPFL and SFA’s Joint Response Group but arrived responding to a government request for more stringent rules.
‘The government shouldn’t decide how every sector decides to get its house in order,’ said Leitch, speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Off the
Ball programme. ‘If you are oil and gas, or retail, or football, we tell you here is the generic guidance but the individual decision-making is up to you.
‘We told the SPFL we wanted more enforcement and the categories we wanted them to look at. The question about whether Hearts should train or not is a question for the SPFL and the SFA. They decided a pause is necessary to ensure all the protocols are in place at all the clubs.
‘Now, the other clubs haven’t started training yet, so that feels easier for them. I understand why Hearts fans and the club feel there has been an injustice there. That is a matter for the SPFL but the government will say that we told the SPFL to get their house in order. Any smart person can understand why we asked them to do that.’
Scottish FA chief executive Ian Maxwell admitted the decision to suspend training for the lower leagues was taken as a way to convince the government not to put the entire game on hold.
While he admitted that course of action was specifically unfair on Hearts, he insisted he had explained the authorities’ motives directly to Tynecastle chair Ann Budge.
‘I spoke to Ann and told her I knew this wouldn’t be a popular decision,’ said Maxwell. ‘Look at everything that happened to Hearts over the summer. This will feel like another slap in the face.
‘But while it is unfair to Hearts, it is also unfair on the hundreds of amateur clubs that have training sessions booked for the next week.
‘There are Championship clubs that have already started testing and wanted to be back training on Monday. We were left with a decision — do we allow one club to train and tell others that haven’t started that they can’t, or is it just a blanket one-week suspension?
‘As a former player, I know it’s the last thing you need.’
Hearts, still operating on a Premiership budget, have followed strict testing protocol at their Oriam base but have been denied the chance of an exemption, even as English side Hull City continue to train at the same facility.
Maxwell defended the apparent contradiction and insisted there would be no loophole that would allow Hearts to move their training outwith Scottish soil.
He continued: ‘When you start treating people slightly differently, that leads to problems. We feel it’s the right decision, to cancel it across the board, so there can be no perceived unfairness. Hull City are an English club under English FA jurisdiction.
‘They are up here on a pre-season training plan and have agreed that with Oriam, who are a private training facility provider. That has nothing to do with the Scottish FA.
‘Clubs under our jurisdiction have been told not to train for a week. If any club were to go down south or abroad to train and there was another breach of guidance, I’m sure the Scottish Government would take a serious view on that.
‘This has to be a wake-up call. We were on a Zoom call with Jason Leitch, a couple of his team and the Premiership managers and players last week. The phrase “watershed moment” was used. That’s exactly what this is.
‘Everybody has to be under no illusions of their obligations, regardless of the level they are playing at.
‘We have to realise the magnitude of what we are dealing with.’