"Footballers get jabbed with stuff all the time..."
Former Chelsea captain John Terry has hit out at Piers Morgan for a tweet suggesting unvaccinated players should be refused treatment for their football-related injuries.
The
sharp spike in Covid cases across the UK, thought to have been triggered by the arrival of the Omicron variant, has already had a huge impact on English football with
six of the ten Premier League games scheduled for this weekend having been postponed*.
The postponements have sparked fresh debate over how many players in English football are still to be vaccinated. The Premier League says 68% of its players are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 - a figure which lags behind other top European leagues.
In response to this, Morgan tweeted that footballers who have not received their jabs should be denied treatment for injuries.
"Footballers who refuse to be jabbed should be refused treatment for injuries," Morgan tweeted. "After all, why should they trust doctors about treatment for broken legs and torn ligaments if they don't trust them about a life-saving vaccine?"
Terry responded, claiming it was a "shocking statement".
https://twitter.com/JohnTerry26/status/1472555378634375170
Morgan later quote-tweeted Terry, pointing out that UK footballers are comparatively less vaccinated than those in other European leagues.
"Why [is it a shocking statement]? Footballers ge jabbed with stuff all the time, why are they being so pathetic about Covid vaccines when so much is at stake?" Morgan asked.
"The really shocking thing is that Uk footballers are massively less vaccinated against Covid than their European counterparts. It's insane."
https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1472556394654097408
The Bundesliga said last week that 94% of its players were fully vaccinated. Bayern Munich's Joshua Kimmich was in the minority of players that had chosen not to have the jabs and recently confirmed he will be out of action with a lung infection, having tested positive for coronavirus weeks earlier.
Reports have since claimed
Kimmich now wishes to have the vaccine and regrets his earlier stance.
*At the time of writing
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