It’s time to stop treating players like ‘guinea pigs’

Wayne Rooney echoed the sentiments of thousands of other sportsmen across the world. In his own words, footballers in England were ‘treated like guinea pigs’ and, let’s face it, they were. It wasn’t until three days ago, on Friday, when Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta tested positive for coronavirus, that the English FA decided to suspend football in the UK. At the time of the decision, there were close to 1000 cases in the UK. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared Europe as the epicentre of the pandemic, countries were in a complete lockdown and the pandemic had brought the entire world to a standstill.

The sporting authorities’ decision last week, to continue with the sport played ‘behind closed doors’, was a right one, for it eliminated the risk of ‘mass gatherings’, but even that, at the end of the day, did not help the players’ cause in any way. Nor did it magically reduce the health hazards involved. All players and staff involved still had to travel via flights or buses and stay in hotels, meaning they were exposed to an unimaginable number of people, had to train day in and day out and had to go about their business the usual way. All this whilst knowing that the rest of the world was in flames. 

Of course, from an administrative point of view, there will be losses. Some might even be irrecoverable. No one can and should deny that. But what needs to be embraced is that this is a one-of-a-kind, never-seen-before unprecedented situation that the world is up against; the card that has been dealt with is an unknown entity. And none more than human lives matter as of this moment.

Yes, for all we know, the pandemic could be wiped off in a month’s time and things could go back to normal, but treating players like inanimate objects and putting their lives potentially at risk is not an amicable solution for it. Every single day, there are discussions, meetings and utmost efforts being made to ensure that the IPL is somehow held. Board members and franchise owners are part of the meeting, but what about the players? If you’re going to ask someone to take a (suicidal) leap of faith, might as well take their consent, eh?

And we, the fans, too, are okay with it, aren’t we? Because all we need is to switch on the telly and get a glimpse of our favourite teams so that we can distract ourselves from the reality that is life and temporarily get rid of thoughts about the dreading existential crisis. We don’t give a toss about the people who actually make it happen. Why? Because of the radical ideology in society - a poisonous one - that someone is entitled to do something just because they get paid a lot for it. It is the reason why the world of sport has astronomically failed to deal properly with mental illness.

You see a player talk about not being able to spend enough time with his kids, next thing you know there’s an idiot on Facebook commenting, “You know, pal. I wouldn’t be complaining if I got paid 250K a week”. The very same ideology is also the reason why even in the midst of this global crisis, we expect players to turn up in front of empty stadiums and entertain us. All this whilst we demand our employers to give us extra offs, allow us to work from home and whatnot.