Coronavirus Club: what happens if Premier League players refuse to play?
We’ve heard a fair a bit about footballers testing positive – and most of them testing negative – for coronavirus. But what if they don’t want to work in an environment so unsafe that they need to be tested for a potentially life-threatening virus twice a week? No players or club staff tested positive from 1,130 tests conducted last Thursday and Friday. But they might have. So they’ll all be tested again next week. Does that sound safe to you, or an admittance that things are dangerous? Aston Villa’s Tyrone Mings is unimpressed. He says players were the “last people to be consulted” over the Premier League’s “financially driven” Project Restart. Mings says players are just “commodities” and the Premier League lacks integrity. Yeah. Who knew?
“Project Restart is financially driven. I think everybody accepts that,” he tells the Mail. “I am all for playing again because we have no other choice. As players, we were the last people to be consulted about Project Restart and that is because of where we fall in football’s order of priority. That isn’t a problem. We got the option to come back to training and that’s fine because we didn’t have to but if the FA and the EFL and the government and Uefa and the Premier League all say you are going back to play, it really doesn’t make any difference what the players think because you are going back to play. It is get in or get out.”
So what happens if player decides to down tools and not play? Surely they’ll be in breach of contract with their club. But would their club fine them? We may well get to find out.
Posted: 31st, May 2020 | In: Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
