As England prepare to face Andorra on Saturday evening, manager, Gareth Southgate has once again involved himself in the Covid-19 vaccination discussion.
There appears to be an ongoing issue with footballers at present in that some have had the vaccine and others don’t see the need.
As it’s a matter of free choice, those that don’t wish to do so are perfectly within their rights to refuse the vaccine.
That hasn’t stopped Southgate throwing his weight behind the vaccination programme again, potentially alienating some of the staff he’s trying to manage.
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“To move out of a pandemic, the only way is a vaccination programme, I think that was essential,” he was quoted as saying by AS.
“There is then the complication that there are lots of individual circumstances around that and I understand that some people would be anxious, perhaps.
“When you are in the camp of mine, over 50, there is less to consider really. The odds are more straightforward, it’s a much more straightforward decision and I’m a believer that it’s the right thing to do.
“I can kind of understand there are other topics we’ve talked about where everybody would be aligned and we would all have a very clear view as a team.
“With this, it’s a little bit more nuanced, lots of people have had the virus, so maybe they feel the antibodies are high in their own bodies.
“Lots of people might have individual medical conditions, some people in the country might have religious reasons. It’s a complicated area, my belief is the route out of the pandemic is a vaccination programme.
“I’m yet to hear anybody offer an alternative and there is not a lot more we can say than that.”
With the World Cup just over a year away, and it thought that Qatar may prefer all participants to be vaccinated, per The Athletic, it’s clearly still an emotive, and some would say controversial, subject.
It isn’t one that’s going away anytime soon, however, so it’s right that it continues to be spoken about and any concerns discussed and dealt with in house.
It’s a situation that does need to be carefully managed too, because the last thing Southgate needs is to have issues between players during international meet-ups.