Watford boss Nigel Pearson has slammed PM Boris Johnson over the lack of action regarding football fixtures.
The Premier League are expected to make an announcement on Friday after holding an emergency meeting, having initially confirmed that fixtures will go ahead as planned this weekend.
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However, since that statement was released, Chelsea ace Callum Hudson-Odoi and Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta have tested positive for coronavirus, leading to fresh calls for the league to be suspended, similarly to many other top leagues around Europe.
The message on Thursday from the Prime Minister was that they weren’t cancelling live events at this stage, thus allowing football fixtures in England to continue.
Pearson clearly wasn’t impressed with what he saw in the press conference, and has called on the health and well-being of all concerned to be prioritised as naturally with fans being able to come together in large numbers and risk spreading the virus, it is putting them at risk too.
“I don’t think we had any great leadership last night listening to the prime minister,” he is quoted as saying by the Guardian. “I was totally underwhelmed by the lack of leadership and clear message in terms of what was said in that press conference. We are trying to be proactive ourselves and hopefully the Premier League will make strong decisions based on what is right for everybody in the game.
“We have to be mindful that this problem, this worldwide problem is not going to go away, it’s going to run its course, it’s not something we can stop and, we, in the football industry, have a responsibility to ourselves and each other that the wellbeing of everybody concerned is taken care. I think what’s important first and foremost is to deal with the wellbeing of people involved in the industry. We have to be decisive with how the problem, the situation, is dealt with.”
Time will tell what is decided, but Pearson seems pretty clear on what he thinks should happen with various reports of players having symptoms of the virus as squads are being asked to put themselves in self-isolation.