Premier League players are being treated like ‘lab rats’ and ‘guinea pigs’, Danny Rose claims

Clubs are due to resume training for socially-distanced sessions this week

Tuesday 19 May 2020 11:56 EDT
Comments
Coronavirus: How has sport been affected?

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Danny Rose believes Premier League players are being treated as “lab rats” as they gear up for a return during the coronavirus pandemic.

The defender, on loan at Newcastle from Tottenham, has already been a vocal critic of the plan to resume the top flight.

Clubs are due to resume training on Tuesday and Wednesday for socially-distanced sessions but Rose remains sceptical.

“I’m dying to get back to football but just with the things that are happening right now, people are going through this coronavirus pandemic a lot worse than me, I don’t want to be complaining about everything,” the England international told The Lockdown Tactics podcast with Robert Snodgrass and Kris Boyd.

“Just off the fact that people are suggesting we should go back to football, like we’re guinea pigs or lab rats.

“We’ve going to experiment this phase and see if it works or not. I can just imagine people at home saying, ‘Well they earn that amount of money so they should be going back’.”

Rose’s comments come as it was revealed that six individuals connected to three unnamed Premier League clubs have tested positive for the virus.

The Covid-19 tests were conducted on Sunday and Monday as part of the league’s partnership with the Prenetics consortium, and are due to take place twice a week from now on. 40 tests will be carried out at each club in each session.

The league said in a statement: “The Premier League can today confirm that on Sunday 17 May and Monday 18 May, 748 players and club staff were tested for COVID-19. Of these, six have tested positive from three clubs.

“Players or club staff who have tested positive will now self-isolate for a period of seven days. The Premier League is providing this aggregated information for the purposes of competition integrity and transparency.

“No specific details as to clubs or individuals will be provided by the League and results will be made public in this way after each round of testing.”

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in