FOOTBALL’S bid to resume the season could face legal challenges on health grounds from players and clubs.
As it stands, it is even unclear when it will be LEGAL for players to train, let alone play matches.
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The Premier League could be set for a massive legal battle ahead of the season returningCredit: Reuters
Premier League chiefs, as well as bosses in other competitions, have stressed they would contemplate playing matches again only when it was medically safe to do so.
But staging the remaining fixtures will require broad, if not unanimous, agreement that the time was right.
Sports lawyer Nick De Marco QC believes individual players or whole clubs could refuse to return, in disputes that may end up in court.
De Marco, who has represented high-profile clients such as Harry Kane, Tyson Fury and a number of Premier League clubs, said: “I think it’s quite likely to happen.
“We’ve seen a great divergence of opinion when and if you should have a lockdown, and its extent.
“There are decisions being made for political and commercial reasons, and there are different medical opinions. So the likelihood of some people thinking it’s safe to return back to work earlier than others must be quite high.”
However long the lockdown lasts, there is likely to be such debate about whether it is medically safe to return to the field that there may well be battles in the courts before there are clashes on the pitch.
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De Marco, a QC at Blackstone Chambers, said: “If you’re not meant to have mass gatherings of more than two people, how can you have football players training?
“If that goes on for, say, two months and then they say we’re now ready to play behind closed doors, you are going to have to have at least two weeks to train to get match fit, if not longer. They can’t be expected to play before they are match fit because that in itself causes problems with injury.
“All of those things could create legitimate grounds for not playing.”
In normal circumstances, a footballer who refused to play would stand a good chance of being sacked.
But in these extraordinary times, De Marco believes players could legitimately decline to perform their contractual obligations on health grounds even if their club or the football authorities said it was safe.
The only way to settle such a difference of opinion might be in court.
De Marco said: “I think a player would have a quite strong case there. Even if the doctor who provided the medical report was later found to be over-cautious and wrong.
“A player must be reasonably entitled to rely on the medical advice he receives. And if that advice is, ‘Don’t play because it’s not safe,’ for example, I would have thought a player was entitled to rely on that, regardless of the fact that a superior medical person has found something different.”
If whole clubs refuse to play ball, then the relevant competition would be in trouble.
Failure to deliver matches brings a new level of legal implications, with broadcasters and sponsors lining up to demand their money back.
De Marco said: “If enough clubs are refusing to play then you are back in the situation of the Premier League, for example, probably trying to further postpone it.
“They want to do everything they can to avoid cancelling because, once they do that, there is litigation.
“I don’t think anybody wants this legal bunfight, if it can be avoided.
“But whether that is possible is not completely in football’s hands.”
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Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
