As anxiety races through many within Britain due to the coronavirus outbreak, Newcastle player Isaac Hayden has spoken about the virus in relation to football.
While speaking calmly to the NUFC website, he told the club’s media team that there are simply more important things than football – and safety is definitely one of them.
With Premier League figures such as Callum Hudson-Odoi and Mikel Arteta being announced as positive for the virus, the pressure on the Premier League to spend the competition had been building, and this morning they announced it will be postponed until April 4.
Before the announcement of the postponement, midfielder Isaac Hayden spoke to the club about the growing fears.
He said: “It’s difficult, but I think the most important thing is to just listen to what the authorities say.
“The club and the doctor here have been on it a lot, and it’s just about keeping safe. At the end of the day, football is important to a lot of people and people love it, but it’s not more important than people’s lives.
“People’s lives are at stake, whether it’s the players, the staff, the fans. It’s just about making sure everyone’s safe and following the right protocol, and then hopefully when we get past it, it will all be good.”
Hayden’s words seem spot on about the case, and footballers should in no way be forced to carry on through this at risk of themselves and the fans that follow them.
Plenty in football across Europe have been diagnosed, and with football being a contact sport, there is always that risk of it being passed on.
The Premier League claims that after a meeting with the shareholders, it was unanimously decided that the best course of action was to suspend the league until April 4.
However, they state that they plan on rescheduling the games that have been missed – including the academy’s – once it is safe to do so.
Time will tell whether the Premier League will come to its conclusion, but right now, there are more concerning things to be worried about.