Stop fatalistic tendencies – Corona is REAL

I have received numerous calls on my private line as well as on social media from various people who confessed that they are suffering from withdrawal symptoms due to the global lack of football action as a result of the Coronavirus and subsequent lockdown.

I have also filed enquiries from ardent Kaizer Chiefs fans who have preposterously asked why the PSL “cannot just do the right thing” and simply award the current championship to their beloved Amakhosi, even though the season has not been completed.

In equal measure, I have also heard laments from Orlando Pirates followers as well as Mamelodi Sundowns fans who are demanding that Chiefs should not expect to get the championship through clandestine means but must earn it!

My take is that this is certainly not a time to engage in petty squabbles and arguments regarding why we should not award Chiefs the championship or when are we going to re-start the championship because it smacks of fiddling while Pretoria is burning.

Yes, there are those that suggest the league should resume, at least behind closed doors, they argue. But I totally disagree because there is no medical evidence that suggest playing without spectators is the best solution.

Covid-19 is real. People are dying in their thousands on a daily basis and scientists are scurrying around the clock, without getting a decent sleep in a desperate attempt to find a vaccine, and yet we are concerned about re-starting the ABSA championship!

The global community has never been confronted by such a deadly, faceless and invincible enemy like it is the case with the Coronavirus right now. And so, shouldn’t we be concentrating on staying safe to arrest this pandemic or focus on resuming football?

There is no country neither scientists nor medical practitioner that has developed a vaccine for this virus yet. Now, me-thinks sending players to contest a pigskin on a football field when a vaccine has not been found is tantamount to signing their death warrants!

It is a well-known fact that during the allotted 90-minutes, they would run around the field trying to score, and quite often a player could feel his throat blocking up and in order to relieve himself, would splurge out a large dose of spit on the field!

In addition, how do they practice social distancing when football is a contact sport? Clearly Tyson Hlatswayo is never going to allow Bradley Grobler to sprint past him to score but his natural instincts as a defender would kick in and he would instantly tackle him.

And what happens after a team had scored? Football is an activity that brings out spontaneous emotional reactions and scoring a goal means players would rush the scorer and instinctively hug him to celebrate the goal.

Perhaps I’m fatalistic or maybe even too cautious, but I wish we could debate this issue soberly without allowing our fantasy needs to cloud our judgements.