Football Exempt From Covid Restructions.

[Sunk]

While travel between tiers is banned for us mere mortals, elite footballers can visit tier 4 when everyone else is forbidden for safety reasons.

Now, after a visit to London, several Manchester City players have tested positive for covid and their game tonight has be postponed.

// City played Arsenal in the EFL Cup at Emirates Stadium on 22 December, by which time London had been put in Tier 4, and City have been told positive cases have subsequently been reported at the hotel they were staying in. //

Time to close this loophole ?

[Maydup]

You're going way off topic Bobbinwales. The OP was talking about footballers travelling when everyone else is forbidden. I agreed that football is non essential and suggested the restrictions could be even tougher and yes I am prepared to live without Strictly and other non essential activities.

Disagree with me by all means, and feel free to have the last word as I'm not going to pick a fight with you over the need to keep petrol stations open or public transport running for goodness sake.

[bobbinwales]

My point is everyone has a different view of what's essential. Footballers and elite athletes are actually more controlled and checked than many of us including teachers and police and shopworkers

[bobbinwales]

But your wrong , everyone isn't forbidden from travelling if its for work purposes or otherwise necessary or if theres an exemption because of approved testing regimes and bubbles

[Stickybottle]

It isn’t a “loophole”
Keeping football going is an important morale booster for many.
————
That very much depends on who you support.
The way my team play most weeks it’s more of an emotional roller coaster than a morale-boosting event!

[New Judge]

//…the supermarkets are open because of people's regrettable need to eat.//

But the virus doesn’t make exceptions. Surely better that a few of us pop our clogs from malnutrition rather than get out and about to do our shopping and possibly spread the virus. After all, many people are dying of other non-Covid related diseases because they were either not diagnosed or not treated properly. A few croaking it with nutritional problems shouldn’t make much difference and it will keep others safe after all.

OK. I’m being flippant (possibly). But as Bobbin has described, the likelihood of footballers spreading the disease to the rest of the population is very remote. So remote as to be an acceptable and containable risk. The same thing happened with Formula One teams. There are about fifteen hundred personnel in total who spent six months touring the globe to participate in seventeen races. There were, I think, three outbreaks in that time which were swiftly contained and the victims (including one Lewis Hamilton) safely isolated. The teams were self-contained during the entire season and there was virtually no chance of any of them infecting anybody else. But still a few contracted it (demonstrating to me that it is impossible to entirely prevent its spread).

Life cannot continue with nobody having anything to amuse them except the latest Covid statistics. It will drive people mad and more of them will die from that than will die from Covid. Football is one of the diversions they need to keep them from going barmy.

[gness]

Decided to look at UK news. It’s frightening and there are people here twittering on about a football match.

[Spicerack]

^ yeah, you. ☺

[emmie]

barsel what about all the people from outside London, who have brought it here.

[HansUrbancka]

Is it the case that Professional Footballers are Insured by their clubs to take care of players wages for sickness and injuries. ?

Consequently, I would imagine that if Tottenham's Topknot Taff was off sick, he would still be paid the small amount of £650 thousand pounds per week which he 'earns' for kicking a bag of wind about.

Hans.

[HansUrbancka]

Scroll to the end of the following link and you will read :-

//Rochdale are one of the clubs in League One whose next two games have been postponed and their club doctor Wes Tensel suggests it is time for the Football League to be suspended.

He told BBC 5 Live: “The spread and the numbers are rising and we have Tier 4 places where people cannot travel but we have players coming in and taking things back to their family, it is probably not the wisest thing at the moment.

“As well as a team doctor I am a GP so I am seeing both sides, so it seems there is a bigger picture going on.

“Why should football go on when other industries can’t and the disease is spreading?” //

Hans.

[HansUrbancka]

I should have included the actual link in my posting above ^^

https://www.itv.com/news/2020-12-29/premier-league-returns-highest-number-of-positive-covid-tests-this-season

Hans.

[archibaldy]

It's low risk and things like the Premier League and F1 are actually putting a not insubstantial amount of money into the UK economy from abroad and the businesses and individuals paying high taxes at a time where many other people and businesses (admittedly through no fault of their own in most cases) are just taking from the economy. That and entertainment is an important factor in keeping us sane. I think it's great that efforts are in place to keep it going.

[Sunk]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/dec/29/premier-league-on-alert-after-record-number-of-positive-coronavirus-tests-football

18 cases in latest testing in Premier League.

// On Tuesday, Sheffield United said they had recorded "a number of positive coronavirus tests after the latest round of testing".

A number of English Football League matches this week have been called off because of Covid-19.

In League One, Rochdale announced their next two fixtures would be postponed, while Doncaster confirmed their next three games had been postponed.

League Two side Morecambe said their next two matches had been called off too. //

I reckon all football will have to be suspended in the next lockdown in January.