Wayne Rooney slammed English football authorities for delaying the decision to suspend the Premier League and other footballing competitions in the country despite the coronavirus pandemic hitting the United Kingdom.
Leagues in Spain and Italy were already suspended following growing number of cases in those countries. Rooney, who plays for Championship side Derby County, accused the English government, the Premier League and the FA of lacking leadership.
“Thankfully, football made the right call in the end. We had to put the season on hold,” Rooney wrote in an exclusive column for The Sunday Times.
“But why did we wait until Friday? Why did it take Mikel Arteta to get ill for the game in England to do the right thing?” he added.
The former Manchester United player highlighted that the football authorities didn’t take stock of the situation until a bigger club was affected.
“It felt baffling that with the three Leicester players having symptoms we were still planning to go ahead with games. Then on Thursday night, it came out that Arteta had the virus and all of a sudden the Premier League announced an emergency meeting the next morning. What was the difference? Is it that Arteta was a bigger name?” questioned Rooney.
“It felt typical of the way things are done in football. That Leicester isn’t a big enough team to cause any chaos, it’s fine, we carry on. Then as soon as one of the bigger clubs – Arsenal – are affected, we finally make a decision. After the emergency meeting, at last, the right decision was made – until then it almost felt like footballers in England were being treated like guinea pigs,” added the 34-year-old.
English football remains suspended until April 4, but there are concerns that it would be difficult to resume playing football by then, thus putting doubts over the possibility to complete the ongoing season.
Uefa are set to discuss the future of Euro 2020 and other European competitions in a meeting on Tuesday with 55 member associations. It is believed this meeting would go a long way in determining the fate of the European football leagues this season.
