France make Covid jab MANDATORY for sports stars, meaning England may have to drop unvaccinated players in the Six Nations, while Chelsea could only field an entirely double-jabbed team at Lille in the Champions League

11 comments

  1. Kind of makes sense, footballers get paid an obscene amount, if they’re constantly off isolating/sick, or entire teams are due to one case, that’s not great value for money…

  3. I don’t support mandatory vaccinations and that includes for sports players. The arguments you can make in favour of it for front line health staff don’t apply here. And particularly with Omicron meaning that vaccination doesn’t prevent transmission very well at all, this measure is ineffective as well as coercive.

  4. Whilst I do agree in principal you’ll probably find UEFA move the games out of France as there’s strict rules about no political interference in football

  5. Why wouldn’t club mangers be enforcing this to begin with? Do you really want to take the risk that the player you spend millions on buying isn’t off sick because they didn’t get vaccinated, or worse to die?

  7. I may be wrong but I believe Chelsea have a decent vaccination rate and have not been affected by the COVID outbreak affecting other clubs. Lots of managers, such as Klopp and Rangnick, have said that they will hesitate to sign unvaccinated players in the future as a result of COVID running amok through squads and causing postponements. With the Athletico and Atalanta games being responsible for major outbreaks of the original strain last year too, it does not seem like a stupid idea to have at least players vaccinated. It is going to be a while before large events are to what they were pre-COVID, if they ever are.

  8. I wouldn’t be surprised if managers made it compulsory for obvious reasons. Not sure why the government is making it mandatory for sports stars though…. Can someone enlighten me?

  9. Sounds good to me. My employer would take a very dim view if I’d refused the vaccine (or started shitting in the office sink which is basically the same thing).

  10. Most of these unvaccinated players will get transferred to Unvaccinated FC but who will they play?

  11. Before someone brings up the ethical/philosophical issue of mandatory vaccination, remember that most countries already have mandatory health checks for various non-covid diseases and covid requirements will just be another one added to the list

    For example, [UK govt TB test requirement](https://www.gov.uk/tb-test-visa)

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