Jurgen Klopp has condemned complex government plans allowing players to travel for international duty in red-list countries as “just not right”.
New rules were introduced on Friday which now allow players who travel for matches in red zone nations like Brazil, to train and play immediately on their return...so long as they isolate outside football hours.
That means they CAN’T go home to their families, but must be confined in a hotel of their choosing, when they are not involved in playing or training.
Players must also have all food delivered outside their room doors to avoid any contact with people outside their football bubble, and Klopp was incredulous about the plans.
“What I really don’t like about it is that I don’t think it is properly thought through,” he fumed.
“It feels a little bit like somebody in the Government opens the door in an important office and says ‘by the way, we still have to sort the footballers’, and someone says ‘why what is wrong with them?’.
“They say ‘they are playing in red-list and they don’t like the 10-day quarantine hotel’, so they just say ‘let them go in another hotel then’. No. no, come on boys! We take people out of normal life for three weeks and away from their families for no real reason.
“We take care of our players. They are here, they live with their families, they don’t do anything else. They come to training and go home. Now we have to put them in a hotel and deliver their food? It’s just not right.”
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Liverpool could have four players forced into isolation after the next international break, with their two Brazilians Alisson and Fabinho along with Senegal’s Sadio Mane and Kostas Tsimikas all due to travel to red zone countries.
Under a bespoke quarantine exemption agreed between the Premier League, Government and health authorities which fully vaccinated players can travel and then play for their clubs on their return, if they follow the strict guidelines.
But Klopp says the decision is madness. “It’s 10 days quarantine, allowed to play games, allowed to go to work, but not allowed to live at home,” he explained.
“You don’t have to live in a hotel chosen by the authorities - you can choose the hotel yourself, but food has to be delivered in front of your room door. You are not allowed to have any visitors. If that’s the solution, I don’t know where it’s coming from.
“It would mean for the players that they go for 10-12 days with their national teams, then they go another 10 days away from their families into quarantine. That’s 22 days, and then two weeks later there’s the next international break.
“That doesn’t sound to me like a real solution. I look at the situation with all seriousness, what do we do? We just move the responsibility to the players; can you do that, do you want
that?
And if you don’t, then don’t go to your national team. It’s not right. I just think it’s not OK that we constantly move the responsibility to the players. It’s really not OK.”
