Matteo Guendouzi thinks Premier League clubs shouldn’t even restart training, let alone matches, until the Covid-19 situation is over.
Speaking to Telefoot in a video released on Tuesday, Matteo Guendouzi gave his thoughts on the coronavirus situation. There’s paper talk of a June return for the Premier League, with training restarting in May.
Even though that would only take place behind closed doors, Guendouzi still thinks it’s too soon to think about going back into training right now. He doesn’t want any action on the pitches until the virus situation is behind us.
‘No games, no training’
“For me, what I think is most important is to not start things up again – no games, no training – until this epidemic stops,” Guendouzi said (via Sport Witness).
“What’s most important is everybody’s health, and not just in the football world, but in the medical world and the world in general. That’s really what’s most important. I’m in favour of nothing starting up again until this virus is taken off this world.
“For now, the orders have been clear. There’s nothing at all. No training, no games, and not for a while. We know the United Kingdom took measures a bit after France, which means this period is starting to be very difficult here.
“There’s a lot of people who are starting to die from this virus. I don’t know if we’re at the start or just in the middle, but we know it’s not the end of this virus, so we know it’s not going to start back up just yet.”
Indefinite season extension
FIFA are already planning to confirm an indefinite season extension, allowing individual country’s football authorities to decide when they end the campaign. As a result, it does seem like there’s little need to rush the games through in June.
There are other factors to consider, of course. Contracts expiring in June, the potential for the Premier League to breach their deals with broadcasters and owe a large rebate, and so on.
All of that pales in comparison to endangering the lives of players and their families though. Just yesterday, Pep Guardiola lost his mother to the virus and the Prime Minister went into intensive care. We’re a long way off a sensible return for football.