Sweet: NHS staff and front-line workers must be tested for coronavirus before footballers

NHS staff and other front-line workers simply must be put first before it comes to testing footballers for the coronavirus ahead of a potential resumption to the football season according to Town chief executive Gary Sweet.

League Managers’ Association chief Richard Bevan stated last week week that the campaign could feasibly begin again once all players have been tested.

However, he did state that ‘tests must be made available first’ to NHS workers and patients, something which Sweet was in complete and total agreement with.

The Hatters CEO said: “The health service, who are the absolute heroes of ours now, it’s not the footballers, it’s the doctors and nurses that are risking their lives, they of course come first.

“The one thing in all of this, football is a very, very important product for society and it’s a very, very important product for the government.

“The government is supporting football and wants football to come out of this absolutely intact for the sanity of our society, and so the leagues have a hot-line into Cobra, or into the Home Office and into DCMS (Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport), where they’re getting guidance all the way.

“Football would not make a decision and could not make a decision to take testing kits ahead of the NHS, so this is way beyond the Luton Town problem.

“It’s one that I have to be concerned about as I, like many around the country, are very concerned about the lack of testing and the lack of PPE (personal protective equipment) that’s available for doctors and nurses.

“We’ve tried to get involved in products and tried to increase productions in those items, but when we come back, whenever that might be, it needs to be safe, it needs to ensure that it doesn’t impact on the resources on the NHS and those front-line workers, but it does need to happen."