OLIVER HOLT: It's time for vaccine denying players to wake up and get the jab now

As football comes to terms with the ruins of this weekend's fixture list, it is time that the players who are still refusing to be vaccinated against Covid-19 were told a few home truths.

It is time, frankly, to tell them to grow up and stop listening to the mish-mash of old wives' tales and conspiracy theories that have infected their thinking. It is time they were told to take a long hard look at themselves and take some responsibility.

It was easy to detect a sense of growing impatience in the words of Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp last week when he wrote about the issue in his programme notes for the match against Newcastle United.

'Ignore those who pretend to know,' he wrote. 'Ignore lies and misinformation. Listen to people who know best. If you do, you end up wanting the vaccine and the booster.'

Not for the first time, English football owes a debt of gratitude to Klopp. Klopp spoke for many of us when he articulated those feelings.

There are not too many among his number who have had the courage to tell it like it is because, unfortunately, the truth attracts blow-back from cranks who would rather believe unfounded rumours peddled by fools on social media than the opinion of eminent scientists.

That means that on BBC Radio 5 Live on Saturday, even an experienced host like Mark Chapman had to apologise for asking an ex-footballer whether current footballers should get the jab because he was worried about exposing him to criticism.

The England manager, Gareth Southgate, was deluged with abuse when he advocated vaccinations. Science and common sense are being shouted down by idiots.

The two rumours that still appear to be rife in Premier League and Football League dressing rooms are, first, that vaccinations are the reason Christian Eriksen suffered cardiac arrest at the Euros last summer, they are the reason Victor Lindelof complained of chest pains, they are the reason Sergio Aguero retired and that they are generally behind an increase in the incidence of players who have collapsed on the pitch in recent months.

That rumour is false. It is gobbledegook. It has been debunked by scientists. For a start, the doctor at Inter Milan, where Eriksen played his club football, has already revealed that Eriksen had not been vaccinated against Covid so even the conspiracy theorists will be hard pushed to maintain that particular argument.

The wider truth is, actually, that fewer footballers are exhibiting heart issues this season than in the seasons that came before the pandemic.

Some footballers, it seems, would rather believe fake news than facts but as an Irish Times colleague pointed out recently, a study published last December in the British Journal of Sports found 475 instances of football-related sudden cardiac death across 67 countries, with a further 142 cases where a player suffered a cardiac arrest but survived.

Last month, Agence France-Presse asked the lead author of that study, Dr Florian Egger, to comment on Facebook reports of a surge in cardiac problems among players since the introduction of Covid vaccines.

He said even if the Facebook allegations about the number of incidents this year were to be accepted, 'there would still be fewer heart emergencies in football than in the pre-Corona year of 2018… there are no more deaths among footballers than before the Covid-19 pandemic.'

The other rumour prejudicing impressionable footballers against the vaccine is that their fertility will be affected. Again, this is laughably inaccurate, alarmist and irresponsible. It is far more likely that catching Covid, rather than being protected against it, will affect fertility.

'There is evidence to suggest that infection with SARS-CoV-2 has the potential to impact both male fertility, female fertility, and certainly the health of a pregnancy of someone infected,' said Dr Jennifer Kawwass, a reproductive endocrinologist and associate professor at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.

'And there is simultaneously no evidence that the vaccine has any negative impact on male or female fertility.'

Even in the fact of overwhelming evidence of its efficacy, it would be wrong to force players to be vaccinated. That cannot be allowed to happen in a civilised society but the time has come now where the Premier League and the Football League have to start adopting a more hard-line attitude towards players who refuse to be vaccinated just as other professional leagues like the NBA have done.

Why should players be treated any differently to fans when it comes to gaining access to a football stadium? I had to show a Covid pass on my phone on Saturday when I arrived at Elland Road for Leeds United’s match against Arsenal. Fans had to do the same to get into the ground. Why should a player not have to show the same proof of vaccination?

The idea that footballers should somehow be treated differently to the rest of the football population is untenable, particularly when supporters are being treated like dirt by the Premier League in particular. Fans are arriving at stadiums to be told games have been cancelled at short notice, in part because players are refusing to be vaccinated and teams are being decimated by Covid outbreaks.

The Premier League, sadly, has become complicit in this mess. It is dancing around the vaccination issue, refusing to issue figures about what percentage of players have had their jabs and their booster and hiding the details behind postponements. That has to stop. They have to ask players to start taking responsibility for the health of those around them and the future of the game.

Employment law in this country militates against clubs docking players’ wages if they refuse to be vaccinated but we have surely reached a point now where our footballers have to be told that if they continue to dismiss the well-being of their team-mates and other club employees, as well as the health of the game, then they will have to train alone and will not be considered for selection.

Some managers like Newcastle’s Eddie Howe have already said that the issue of whether a player has been vaccinated or not will enter into the club’s thinking when they are deciding who to sign in the January transfer window. It is hard to argue with that logic. Why sign a player who could effectively sabotage the health of those around him and the club’s ability to fulfil its fixtures?

Perhaps the weight of evidence in favour of being vaccinated will begin to persuade even the most recalcitrant of players to reconsider their refusals.

Perhaps the fact that Joshua Kimmich, one of the best players in Europe, caught Covid after refusing to be vaccinated and has now developed a lung problem that will keep him out until next month, will prompt some to rethink. Kimmich now says he wishes that he had been vaccinated.

Vaccination is not a panacea for football and footballers. It does not prevent infection. But the science says that those who are fully vaccinated are far less likely to infect others than those who have refused to be vaccinated.

They are also, as an aside, less likely to fill hospital wards and prevent those suffering from other illnesses from getting treatment.

It is time for the hold-outs in English football to wake up. The chaos of this weekend was more evidence that players owe it to the game to be vaccinated.

They owe it to the fans to be vaccinated. They owe it to the vulnerable around them in society to be vaccinated. And, as Kimmich is discovering, they owe it to themselves.