EPL stars shouldn't be forced to play through Covid-19: Neil Humphreys
Footballers should not be forced to play though Covid-19
Superstardom isn't a vaccine for Covid-19 and Sergio Aguero has the right not to die.
Or, to be more specific, he has the right to minimise risk and avoid passing the virus to vulnerable family members.
But trolls on Twitter appear to disagree. In the scabrous, pus-filled swamp of social media, Aguero has been found guilty of the heinous crime of wanting to keep his family alive.
Apparently, being a wealthy Manchester City striker, he should be prepared to throw himself on the spikes of Covid-19 for our entertainment.
Coincidentally, the iconic movie Gladiator celebrates its 20th anniversary this week and there are faint echoes of the Roman Empire in the online outrage being directed towards Aguero and his isolated entertainers.
Why are they not facing down their fears in the gladiatorial, steely arenas of the English Premier League for our amusement? Why are we not being entertained?
Instead, Aguero had the audacity to question the haste of Project Restart. On Friday, English Premier League executives will meet again to discuss their plan to bring back football as soon as possible before the money runs out.
TV revenues are on the line. Many players' contracts finish on June 30. The legal ramifications are complicated. The threat of administration is a possibility for smaller clubs operating on tight margins.
These are valid concerns. Aguero simply wondered out loud if the players' health might be prioritised in the blitzkrieg efforts to get the cash tap turned back on.
"The majority of players are scared because they have family, they have children, they have babies," he told El Chiringuito TV. "When we go back, I imagine that we will be very tense… The moment someone feels ill, you will think: 'What's gone on there?' It does scare me."
His concerns are logical. But logic and trolls are uneasy bedfellows.
To test the theory, read the Twitter comments below the BBC story on Aguero's coronavirus fears. The first post dismissed the Argentine as "a joke" and ordered him to "grow a set" or retire.
And the third post pointed out that the City striker earned £250,000 (S$440,000) a week and yet he was "scared to play football", inferring that a healthy salary somehow buys both bravery and immunity.
Apparently, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates can currently be found stalking intensive care units, punching Covid-19 particles.
The social media feed dribbled on with apoplectic trolls insisting that Aguero should think about healthcare workers (he never said he wasn't). He had forgotten supermarket staff earning a pittance (who said?). He was told to join the 'real world' (where rich footballers presumably didn't fear for their families).
Other reasoned voices countered the moronic bile, pointing out that Aguero was a son and a father first and a footballer second, but even these empathetic responses missed the point.
Aguero was alone. He was a rare voice of reasonable protest and yet he was essentially thrown to the trolls for shattering the silence on players' safety.
Like a boorish, drunken uncle, the subject of players' safety has been ushered into a corner in the futile hope that it quietens down and drifts off.
Brighton & Hove Albion striker Glenn Murray also stood up and declared the EPL's suggestion to cover players' faces with snoods as "farcical". He also challenged other proposed safety protocols.
Disinfected cones and corner flags and cars being parked further apart at training, along with regular Covid-19 tests, sounded like surreal attempts to present a safe return to work in an unsafe environment.
VITRIOLIC ABUSE
Aguero and Murray highlighted their reservations and were rewarded with the kind of vitriolic abuse usually found on toilet walls, perhaps discouraging others to speak up.
The politics of envy is nothing new, but it's a battle that cannot be won during a pandemic. Footballers lose if they protest. Footballers lose if they stay silent and play during a health crisis.
In the meantime, vested interests continue to push Project Restart, fully aware of the psychological and financial impact that an EPL return would have on society.
Football's resurrection could offer a timely boost, as long as a footballer doesn't die. Or a footballer's relative.
A sudden death has a tendency to ruin any party.
Hopefully, Aguero will not be viewed as an outlier, but the first of many rebels with a valid cause. He put his family before football.
That doesn't make him a pampered, multi-millionaire. That makes him human.
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