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Chelsea manager Frank Lampard has said he opposes the idea to test footballers for coronavirus before frontline health workers in an attempt to restart the season.
Following a video conference involving all 20 Premier League clubs on Friday, the determination to complete the season, which has been suspended since March 13, was re-stated by the league.
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Sources have told ESPN that the campaign will be concluded behind closed doors at neutral venues if football can return safely but Lampard said players should not be tested before frontline workers.
“The health and safety of players and staff is huge,” he told BT Sport.”We play a contact sport we’re all desperate to see — it’s a form of escapism, to watch football, play and train — but how are we not going to put the players at risk within that?
“The other issue is testing. We will probably have a minimum of 70 or 80 staff at Cobham [training ground] if we’re going to restart training. It’s right that we test regularly, but when we’re looking around the world… I think it’s important for football to take its place.
“I don’t know the testing numbers for National Health Service [NHS] and care workers, people who are doing these incredible jobs over the last two months. I don’t think it would sit well, not just with me, but with anybody, if we didn’t make sure that people who are in that frontline are getting tested.”
In March, Chelsea made the Millennium Hotel at their Stamford Bridge stadium in London available to the NHS to provide accommodation to staff as they fight the pandemic.
Sources have told ESPN that the club has asked first-team players who are overseas to return to England and be on standby should the Premier League step up plans to return.
London clubs Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United have reopened their training grounds to allow players to continue that work while observing strict social distancing measures but Chelsea are yet to utilise their Cobham base in the same way.
As with all Premier League sides, the Chelsea squad have been following individual programmes since action was put on hold.