Despite the fact that he had led the England national team to their first final since the 1966 World Cup, manager, Gareth Southgate, has detailed the abuse he received in light of giving his backing for the Covid vaccine programme.
Were it not for a strong Italy side taking England all the way and ultimately beating them on penalties in the Euro 2020 final, the Three Lions and their supporters really would’ve seen football coming him last summer.
That didn’t appear to matter to those who dished out such levels of abuse to Southgate over his views on the coronavirus, that he said it surpassed any other abuse he’d received for playing matters.
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“I think the (Premier League) captains had a call with Jonathan Van Tam (deputy chief medical officer) from what I read,” he was reported as saying by Sky Sports.
“So I think that information from a sort of chief medical perspective was delivered and my understanding, although I’ve not spoken to people at every, club, is that the take up has been very varied across different clubs.
“I’m not really going to get too involved in this because I was asked to do a video supporting the vaccination programme, which I thought was responsible and of all the things that I’ve received abuse for over the summer, of which there’s been several, that’s probably the one I’ve received the most abuse over.”
The issue still appears to be the amount of mis-information that is circling, and which has led to many footballers as well as members of the public decide not to be jabbed.
How that will impact them personally in due course nobody knows, but it’s clear that Southgate isn’t going to involve himself in that particular argument again.