‘They shouldn’t have played this game and should NOT have let fans travel here’: Liverpool mayor accuses the Government of IGNORING the WHO to allow Liverpool v Atletico Madrid to go ahead, risking thousands of lives
- Liverpool-Atletico Madrid took place in front of 54,000, with 3,000 away fans
- When tie took place, city had just six coronavirus cases but 246 have now died
- The city’s metro mayor Steve Rotheram has slammed the Government’s decision
- He says they were pursuing a ‘flawed’ herd immunity policy they later changed
- Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19
Liverpool’s metro mayor Steve Rotheram has accused the Government of allowing the Champions League match with Atletico Madrid to go ahead in order to pursue a ‘flawed’ policy of herd immunity against coronavirus.
The match has since received a huge amount of scrutiny after a crowd of 54,000 – with 3,000 fans arriving from Madrid – were allowed to attend the match, against the advice of the World Health Organisation.
The city of Liverpool at the time only had six confirmed cases of the virus, but as of Wednesday morning 246 people have died of coronavirus in Liverpool NHS hospitals.
A huge 3,000 Atletico fans came over from Madrid to watch their team play Liverpool
Despite the coronavirus, thousands of fans lined the streets of Liverpool before the match
Liverpool’s metro mayor Steve Rotheram has slammed the Government’s decision to play tie
It was reported that the Government initially believed herd immunity would be the best way to deal with the pandemic, before they subsequently changed their approach and brought in a series of lockdown and social distancing measures.
Speaking about the match, Rotheram said: ‘The government seemed to pick and choose whether it takes advice from the WHO, and the WHO was clear that they should not have played this game and should not have let fans travel.
‘This is part of that flawed herd immunity system that the government was promoting at the time. The problem was that the government didn’t want to lock down.
Mayor Rotheram has accused Boris Johnson and the Government of making the wrong call
Roberto Firmino celebrates his goal in front of the 3,000 travelling Madrid fans on March 11
‘If we had locked down sooner, then we would now be out of this curve or certainly on a downward trajectory and coming out of this much sooner. The government has been reluctant to do that and the government was wrong.’
In the weeks since the game, the mayor of Madrid has also slammed the decision to play the match, labelling it a ‘mistake’.
In addition, Rotheram added: ‘We will find out a lot of answers as to why this game, and the Cheltenham Festival, went ahead in the public inquiry which will follow at a later date.’