Arsenal have been accused of being ‘selfish’ for restarting training sessions this week, with the London Colney training ground being reopened tomorrow.
The club was one of the first to shut down due to manager Mikel Arteta having been confirmed as contracting the virus, and the whole division has since been suspended, with no idea of when (or if) the season will be able to continue.
Despite social distancing supposedly set to be adhered to, TalkSport host Georgie Bingham has slammed the decision to reopen the training facility.
“It made me really upset, Arsenal going back to training next week,” Bingham said on Sunday morning.
“That breaks social distancing rules. Social distancing rules say you can go out for food, health reasons or work but only if you cannot work from home.
“Well, even if training doesn’t resume until June 1, because that’s the kind of deadline isn’t it that they’re setting on finishing the season, you can work from home if you’re a footballer because you have no reason to be in work because there are no games.
“So you’re working from home on your fitness.
“You can have four weeks of training when they say that the game can return, but what kind of example is football setting except that it’s greedy and it needs to go back to work?
“I don’t get it, I just think it looks bad.”
Bingham moved onto insist that the club have overstepped the mark, and should have waited until they were advised to return from those higher up.
“Wait for the Government to tell you or wait for the governing bodies of the Premier League to tell you you can return to work,” she continued.
“You only need one of those players to pick up coronavirus and start a fresh run and they’ve already had it Arsenal, they’ve had a problem with it.
“So you only need one player to come back, or give it to his family or his pregnant wife or his parents who are vulnerable, because a lot of people will have their families living with them at the moment, and it’s just unnecessary.
“It’s really, really selfish and stupid and unnecessary and I don’t care for it at all.
“It just makes football look bad. Even though it’s really important and everyone’s facing financial ruin across the board, you’ve got to look, if you’re football, at how it looks.
“It looks poor and it looks selfish and it looks greedy.”
Can training recommence while adhering to social distancing rules? Could the club get in trouble for allowing a return to training? Would an outbreak at the club following the return to training have major repercussions for Arsenal Football Club?
Patrick
