The Sunday Times December 19, 2021 9Jabs will have scant effect on entitled
footballers but they still deserve to get
it in neck for not getting it in the arm
Rod Liddle
As a person controlled by Bill Gates
and alien lizard creatures (ie I’m fully
vaxxed and have had my booster
shot), I’m still averse to the notion of
mandatory vaccines. Making
medication compulsory for the entire
population has had unhappy
consequences, particularly in
Germany.
But then I looked at the near
destruction of the football
programme this weekend, including
Millwall’s game against Preston North
End, which I was greatly looking
forward to, and was tempted to
change my mind. That’s the problem
with me. My steadfast moral
principles are often contingent or
subverted by pique.
Footballers are getting it in the
neck for not getting it in the arm.
How can so many players at so many
clubs succumb to this rapacious
Omicron variant? The answer must
be that many of them are unvaxxed,
which is indeed the case. We draw
from this the conclusion that
footballers are, first and foremost, a
bit thick and thus vulnerable to the
hysterical lunacies that abound on
that thing to which they are, as a
species, addicted — social media.
Our disdain widens, though. They
are not just thick but also entitled.
They believe they are better than us,
physically fitter (which is in most
cases true) and thus more able to
withstand the effects of Covid,
whichever variant might present
itself. In general, this is also true but
with notable exceptions.
Birmingham City’s Troy Deeney
was placed on a ventilator in hospital
in the spring of 2020 (thus before
vaccines were available), while his
club colleague Neil Etheridge “almost
died” from the virus, according to
Deeney. So while the stats maysuggest that young healthy athletes
would on average suffer much less
egregiously from the virus than,
for example, me — this is not
always the case.
Anyway, according to the Football
League, at least 25 per cent of our
footballers have not the slightest
intention of getting vaccinated. It
said: “The EFL is encouraging all
eligible players and staff to get fully
vaccinated and a booster jab to help
protect colleagues and minimise the
risk of fixtures being postponed. The
data for November has shown that 75
per cent of [EFL] players are either
fully vaccinated, have had a single jab
or intend to be vaccinated.”
It is, I think, slightly
underestimating the scale of the
problem. The truth is that only 59 per
cent of our players are fully
vaccinated and that some of the
recusants “intend” getting a vaccine
is a very long way from an indication
that they will definitely do so. If they
have not been vaccinated yet, why
would they bother in the future?
Deeney insists that we shouldn’t
persecute footballers for their low
uptake of jabs, nor should antivaxer
players be scapegoated. Jürgen
Klopp, the Liverpool manager, has
been saying much the same thing,
channelling the Archbishop of
Canterbury in asserting that getting
vaccinated is a moral imperative,
but should not be made
mandatory.
He added: “It’s unbelievable
how aggressive the antivaxer scene
is and how clear they are in that
they obviously know better than
the rest of us.” I can almost
guarantee that in the comments
below the online version of this
article, somebody will insist that I
am a dupe for being vaxxed andvaccine-shy footballers have it right.
They may or may not mention
lizards, Gates and the excellent 5G
signal I now get from the left arm.
This is largely a UK thing and
therefore presumably all a bit of a
mystery to Klopp. Vaccine hesitancy
is much, much lower in the
Bundesliga. Bayern Munich’s Joshua
Kimmich was castigated for his own
rather moderate objections to the
vaccine (ie he wasn’t entirely sure it
had been tested properly and he did
not rule out having a jab). In the NFL
in the United States, an estimated 95
per cent of players have been jabbed.
The England cricket team have been
fully vaxxed for a while, although not
against a hitherto unknown new
variant which renders them
absolutely shite at playing cricket.
There are some caveats to the low
take-up vaccine among footballers.
By and large, the younger you are,
the less likely you are to want a
vaccine. Vaccine hesitancy is at 8 per
cent among the 16-29 age group, four
times the rate of those over 50.
Vaccine hesitancy is also far more
prevalent among sections of Britain’s
ethnic minorities, especially black
British people. And black British
people are proportionately
overrepresented among footballers.
On average, footballers are right in
thinking that the virus, whatever its
mutations, will have scant effect
upon them. This is also why young
fit people tend to flout lockdown
rules. You cannot, then, demand
they be vaccinated for their own
good — vaccination can be sold to
the young and fit only as a
communitarian act. As Justin
Welby said, a case of love thy
neighbour. And the truth is, that’s
not how the vaccines have been
sold to the British population.EMMA JONES, 27
WATFORD FANThis week has been
tough, because it
seems as if we might
return to behind-
closed-doors
football or no
football at all. In the
400-odd days of
fans being unable to
attend live matches,
I really struggled
mentally. Football’s
my life, and I’ve
followed Watford
home and away for
more than 23 years. I
kind of agree with
Liverpool manager
Jürgen Klopp, who
questioned how
useful a pause in the
schedule would be
given Covid will still
be around. I think
teams just need to
be tighter on
protocols, and I
personally don’t see
the need for it.
I saw that medical
experts had told
fans to stay away
from games but the
government aren’t
calling off Christmas
parties or the darts.
Their “cheese and
wine” party went
ahead despite Covid
restrictions last year,
so why can’t we go
to football?IF DARTS CAN
GO AHEAD SO
CAN FOOTBALL
home schooling lessons, surprising
primary classes to share his personal
experience on diversity and
inclusion, while Andrea Radrizzani,
our chairman, gifted Elland Road to
the NHS to create one of the
country’s largest vaccination hubs,
complete with an army of club staff
volunteering to steward the queues.
Two years before Covid, on his
arrival, Marcelo Bielsa eloquently
defined the importance of football as
“being able to bring joy to lives where
joy is often hard to find”. As we
approach a challenging Christmas
and new year, his words could not be
more apposite.