The Bundesliga in Germany recently resumed proceedings after the coronavirus enforced break which stopped all sporting activities around the world. Meanwhile, the Premier League and La Liga in England and Spain respectively are mulling ways to resume the season. Serie A too has confirmed that their football season would resume from 20 June. All these leagues are expected to be played behind closed doors which could be the new normal for sports in the recent future.
Indian football skipper Sunil Chhetri feels that the first stage of resuming sporting action in India would be to ensure that a full-fledged training session is allowed.
“The Korean League and Bundesliga are checking every player every single day before he trains. When they go to the match, they have already been tested that they have no virus. But you never know, because some can be asymptomatic. That’s why, for a second layer of protection, they are saying don’t hug each other, don’t spit and stuff like that,” he said in a webinar hosted by non-profit organisation Yuva.
“But I think the first stage is training only. Matches are only once a week, but you train every day. It’s going to be 30 players minimum, 12 coaches, a ball boy and a kit man. Everybody is going back home, and you don’t know who they are meeting. You don’t know who they are mixing with. But then again, you have to start,” Chhetri added.
Other stars in the webinar included the likes of Rahul Dravid, Zaheer Khan, PV Sindhu and Anjum Moudgil. Chhetri also stated that since there would no fans in the stadium, the abusive language used by players during matches could now be heard by viewers on television.
“These superstars (Sindhu and Moudgil) play a game very nicely and they are very well-behaved, they don’t abuse,” Chhetri said.
“So if there are no fans, people will get to know our vocabulary of abuses. We utter nonsense, but we are allowed to say anything, except to the referee. We are dirty, we are ugly. If the fans are there, they are loud, and it (the abuse) all gets subdued. But if they’re not there, my god…”