TRUMP has dismissed the warnings of Dr Anthony Fauci that the NFL is not ready to resume its season, saying the government’s coronavirus advisor has “nothing to do with NFL football.”
The White House coronavirus doctor Anthony Fauci had raised his doubts that football will be played in 2020 unless NFL players are “in a bubble.”
“Unless players are essentially in a bubble — insulated from the community and they are tested nearly every day — it would be very hard to see how football is able to be played this fall,” Fauci told CNN on Thursday.
But on Friday, the president brushed away his advisor’s comments, tweeting: “Tony Fauci has nothing to do with NFL Football. They are planning a very safe and controlled opening.”
He added: “However, if they don’t stand for our National Anthem and our Great American Flag, I won’t be watching!!!”
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases also reiterated his warning of a second COVID wave as the NFL prepares to start the season in three months’ time.
“If there is a second wave, which is certainly a possibility and which would be complicated by the predictable flu season, football may not happen this year.”
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the NFL has pushed ahead with plans to start the season as scheduled on September 10.
The outbreak has left most North American sport schedules in tatters. However the NFL, in its off-season, has been largely unaffected other than scrapping plans to hold the annual draft in Las Vegas in April and moving it online.
The league has protocols in place for the opening of team facilities and so far training camps remain scheduled to open on July 22, despite some high-profile positive tests.
Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott is one of several members of his team and the Houston Texans to test positive for COVID-19, the NFL Network reported on Monday.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told ESPN that the league expects some positive tests.
Fauci’s concerns also extend to college football which is scheduled to begin on August 29.
