Liverpool city mayor Steve Rotheram has said the government need to take 'responsibility' for not locking down sporting events in the UK sooner, suggesting Liverpool's tie with Atlético Madrid should not have taken place in front of spectators.
52,000 watched the Champions League last-16 second leg tie at Anfield, which saw at least 3,000 fans travel from Spain - where a partial lockdown was already in place due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The UK would ban mass gatherings a little over a week later and sport has since come to a grinding halt virtually all over the world. But Rotheram - mayor of the region since 2017 - believes the UK Government should have been more proactive in curtailing major sporting events, especially where large numbers were expected to travel from Covid-19 hotspots such as Madrid.
The Government should have listened to experts like @johnrashton47 and stopped the Liverpool vs Atletico Madrid game from happening.
— Steve Rotheram (@MetroMayorSteve) April 21, 2020
Instead 3000 fans were allowed to travel from Madrid.
Now, 5 of our 6 local authorities have higher infection rates than the UK average. pic.twitter.com/cIVG9FWuVH
"If people have contracted coronavirus as a direct result of a sporting event that we believe shouldn't have taken place, well that is scandalous," Rotheram said, as per the BBC.
"That's put not just those people in danger, but those frontline staff in the NHS and others in their own families that may have contracted it. We've seen an increase in the infection curve, and that's resulted in 1,200 people [in Liverpool] contracting Covid-19.
"That needs to be investigated to find out whether some of those infections are due directly to the Atlético fans. There were coronavirus hot cities, and Madrid was one of those.
Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram has called for an inquiry into whether the area's high number of Covid-19 deaths - which stood at 246 as of Wednesday - could be related to last month's fixture.
— Anfield Watch (@AnfieldWatch) April 23, 2020
Full story above
"They weren't allowed to congregate in their own country, but 3,000 of those fans came over to ours, and potentially may well have spread coronavirus.
"So it does need looking at, and it does need the government to take some responsibility for not locking down sooner."
Rotheram added that an inquiry into what advice the government was taking at the time of the game should take place, to fully establish why more preventative measures weren't taken sooner.
He continued: "The government was saying it was a low risk at the time, but of course just a few days later they completely locked down the country; they banned sports and events and large gatherings.
Steve Rotheram says last month's Liverpool v Atletico Madrid game at Anfield should not have gone ahead and blames the government's "flawed herd immunity strategy". Says the government's "reluctance" to bring in a lockdown was "wrong".
— Phil McCann (@phi1mccann) April 21, 2020
"And this could have happened sooner. I haven't got access to the government's scientific advisors, but they would have been asking those questions.
"That's why I think an inquiry needs to tease out just what the government was being advised to do at that time."
For more from Robbie Copeland, follow him on Twitter!
Source : 90min