Boris Johnson’s government continue to hinder football and it should be personal choice if a player wants vaccine
SEASONS usually open with sunshine and promise.
There may be some sunshine this August but the promise was violated by Covid-19.
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There are big problems but the daddy of them is among players and staff at football clubs.
I have to be frank here and say the Government has been as much a hindrance as a help.
My personal nightmares centre on players who say ‘no’ to vaccinations — and the Government make them mandatory.
My hope is Boris Johnson’s libertarian instincts will lead him away from cautiousness.
He has changed his mind several times previously, however, and he might yet accept advice that a jab passport is necessary in the entertainment industry to convince young people to follow the example of their heroes.
It would be odd to announce that supporters can only enter stadiums if they are vaccinated, but allow players to be in there if they have not been.
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If vaccinations become mandatory, any players who rebel would not be eligible to take the field. It would help if the Prime Minister announced now that he was not going to take a hard line with these two-jab refuseniks.
Will he? No one knows. He shouldn’t, as being vaccinated must be a personal choice, and you can see why fit young people living in a protective bubble and being tested every few days are reluctant to have it.
Clubs already live with the fact infected players could pass the virus around the field but more worryingly in the dressing rooms, the team bus or training grounds.
We are only as safe as the person in our midst who ignores the hands-space-face message, and all our players understand this.
In such matters, Boris often plays a game of hide and seek. After all there are still a few things we don’t know about him besides the number of children he has fathered.
One we know of, is that short of hanging off a wire rope at the London Olympics he has no particular enjoyment of sport.
Even huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’, often to the liking of Prime Ministers of Eton vintage, do not seem of particular interest to him.
And his characteristic optimism during the pandemic has led him into deep water, in some ways he’s been paddling below Niagara Falls.
The hopes and prayers of every club is that he does not go mandatory vaccination for players or supporters, because inevitably some will still say “no way”.
Many can’t understand this mentality and there is a wry comment doing the rounds that “Imagine if in London during the Blitz there’d been a bunch of people saying ‘I’ll turn on my lights if I feel like it’.”
Older people remember the vaccinations they had as schoolchildren without a debate or a choice.
At least Thursday’s announcement means pinging is no longer a threat and should a player contract Covid isolation of team-mates will not be necessary.
Boris Johnson
They were punctured in the name of diphtheria, smallpox, polio, tetanus, whooping cough and, latterly, undermining MMR proved to be a dangerous illusion.
The UK at last seems to be edging towards controlling the disease and this is largely due to anti-Covid treatments that either eradicated it or limited its effects.
Dangers continue to lurk. Clubs face games in Europe, while several pre-season matches have already been cancelled.
At least Thursday’s announcement means that pinging is no longer a threat and should a player contract Covid, isolation of team-mates will not be necessary — a huge relief for managers.
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And then there’s the fans. Covid doesn’t like fresh air so the dangers are in bars and eateries — not at football stadiums.
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But some clubs are finding that the stewards who would enforce new rules are now in short supply.
Another effect of Covid, of course. Will it never rest?
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