Wolves manager Nuno Espirito Santo slams Uefa for coronavirus response with 'people dead and dying'

Nuno Espirito Santo believes football games should be postponed while coronavirus continues to spread
AFP/Getty Images
Matt Davies12 March 2020

Nuno Espirito Santo has blasted the "absurd" decision to continue to play football while people around the world die of coronavirus.

Wolves face Olympiakos tonight in a Europa League fixtures staged behind closed doors, shortly after owner Evangelos Marinakis tested positive for the ever-increasing disease.

With coronavirus significantly impacting the world of sport, Wolves made a request to UEFA asking for their fixture against the Greek side to be postponed, an appeal that was turned down.

The spread of the disease has now been labelled a ‘global pandemic’ by the World Health Organisation, with 590 people now testing positive in the UK, while over 1000 have died in Italy alone.

Nuno – speaking to BT Sport ahead of the game – said he couldn’t comprehend how football can continue while the disease continues to harm so many people globally.

Several sporting events are now being played behind closed doors
AFP via Getty Images

He said: "You play a game of football and then realise what is happening worldwide - people dead and dying. Then we play a game of football - it's absurd."

Boris Johnson, in a statement regarding COVID-19, has stated there is no medical reason for such sporting events to be cancelled as of yet, but recognises it may be a step that eventually comes to fruition.

"We are guided by the science; there is no medical reason at the moment to ban such events,” he said.

"We are not saying no to that sort of measure, we are keeping it up our sleeves. But it is very, very important in order to maximise our interventions that we get the timing right."

Outside of the UK, sporting events are continuously being postponed, La Liga, Serie A, MLS, the NBA and the Australian Grand Prix as examples.

For now, however, football in the UK will continue as scheduled, regardless of what Nuno and others believe.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in