Liverpool FC, along with the rest of global football, are off indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic, but there are still plenty of Reds news items to discuss.
So let’s get started with where Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane ranked in the Who Scored.com top 50 in Europe. The high scoring duo were ranked much lower than one would expect, as neither cracked the top 25. Salah was #30 and Mane #28, read the justification over at this link
Elsewhere, Reds boss Jurgen Klopp is supposedly wanted by his native national team, with Germany wanting him as the successor to Joachim Low. We’ll see how realistic that idea is, or is not.
Elsewhere, the UEFA Champions League group stage contest which saw the Reds bounced from the tournament at the hands of Atletico Madrid on March 11, reportedly may have accelerated the spread of coronavirus.
That’s according to council’s director of public health Matthew Ashton, who believes it was the wrong decision to stage the match. (which was one of the last major sporting events to be held, before the mass cancellations began).
“It was not the right decision to stage the match,” Ashton said to the Guardian. “People don’t make bad decisions on purpose — perhaps the seriousness of the situation wasn’t being understood across government at that time.”
“Although we will never know, the Atletico Madrid game could have been one of the cultural events and gatherings that influenced the rise in Liverpool.
“It is definitely one to be included on the list for learning and for a future inquiry, so that organisations can learn and not make similar mistakes.”
The match, which went ahead despite the reservations of local politicians, saw Liverpool’s defense of their European title come to an end.
Finally, Reds skipper Jordan Henderson has contacted the captains of other Premier League clubs for the purpose of setting up a COVID19 relief fund that would benefit the National Health Service (NHS) in Great Britain.
The idea is that Premier League footballers, who are paid especially handsomely, would donate part of their wages to help the greater cause. The Times has more at this link.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com on Twitter here and his cat on Instagram at this link