“The fact that it is a week to forget for Granit Xhaka after a red card with Arsenal is one aspect,” Andreas Böni said. “The other is that he acted irresponsibly.
“As much as Xhaka impressed us at the Euros with his leadership of the team, it is difficult to understand that as captain of the Swiss national team, as a role model for many, he is not vaccinated.
“He had already challenged fate when he went to the tattoo artist without a mask before the Euros.
“Sure, there is no compulsory vaccination, each person makes this decision themselves. But basically it is negligent not to be vaccinated as a professional footballer. You travel a lot, on planes, on buses, you are constantly on the move with different groups of people. And if you get caught, an entire team is threatened with quarantine, which endangers the game.”
Xhaka is now going to be out for at least a week or so, not that it makes much difference to Arsenal, who would have been without him anyway due to his red card against Manchester City.
It’s more of an issue for Switzerland, who have two further World Cup Qualifiers before the international break is over, including one against Italy.
The bigger concern for Arsenal now is whether Xhaka ends up with longer lasting effects of having contracted the virus whilst unvaccinated. We saw how Covid-19 set back Gabriel Magalhaes for a while even after he was officially available again early this year.
Xhaka also believes that he was ‘brutally surprised’ to be sent off for flying, two-footed, off the ground into a tackle against Manchester City.