It was recently announced that at least one player in the NWSL and one player in MLS came back with positive COVID-19 tests. This news comes as both leagues lifted restrictions on distanced training sessions.
NWSL is the first American sporting league to continue play, with the Challenge Cup starting June 27. Meanwhile MLS plans to start its tournament July 8.
If only this was something that people could see coming.
The U.S. currently has more confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus than any other nation with 2.23 million, with over 120,000 deaths. Putting that in perspective, throughout the whole world, there have been 8.24 million cases, with 446,000 deaths.
To put things bluntly, there is no reason that sports should be continuing in the U.S. in its current state. This is especially the case for contact sports like soccer.
We Need Better Handling, or no Sports
The handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. has been nothing short of a disaster. It’s not like other nations, like Germany or New Zealand, that have been relatively successful in their handling of the disease. The U.S. has been an unmitigated disaster, with leadership playing it off as nothing more than the seasonal flu or even, in the president’s case, calling it “their new hoax.”
And with cases rapidly beginning to rise across the nation once again, the last thing that should be a worry is sports.
Partner that with the fact that we’re now starting to see political rallies and states are far too prematurely reopening, and we have a recipe for disaster. That makes these new positive cases in the NWSL and MLS so troubling. In a contact sport, there’s no way to adequately say that players are going to be safe with the current state of affairs in the country.
In reality, there shouldn’t be any sports in the U.S. until leadership can improve the status of the nation or the disease cannot be transmitted at a rapid speed. Neither of those options are anywhere close to happening, and without that, contact sports simply cannot return safely.
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