Tommy Martin: For a hard taskmaster, Thomas Tuchel is dangerously soft on vaccines
Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel instructs his players during the UEFA Champions League, Group H match against Juventus at Allianz Stadium, Turin. Picture: Fabrizio Carabelli/PA
Pitch perfect since joining Chelsea in January, Thomas Tuchel hit his first bum note in Saturday’s defeat to Manchester City, then followed it with another clanger ahead of last night’s Champions League tie with Juventus.
Revealing that midfielder N’Golo Kante had tested positive for Covid-19, the Blues boss admitted he didn’t know how many of his squad had been vaccinated against the virus.
This was after a leaked Premier League memo revealed high levels of vaccine hesitancy in the game: Only seven squads were more than 50% fully vaccinated, while the Daily Mail reported that at least two teams have no more than six players fully dosed.
Tuchel, who did not disclose Kante’s vaccination status, was asked whether players had a duty to promote public uptake of vaccinations by getting the jab themselves and whether he had recommended his squad do so.
His response suggested the manager is adopting a light touch on the matter.
“It would be easy to say yes now and get maybe applause from a lot of people,” he said.
“But at the same time do I have the right to say it? I’m not so sure. I can make the decision for myself, and everybody else needs to reflect about it and take a risk or not. I think it’s a serious question and vaccination seems to be a proper protection.
“I am vaccinated. But I don’t really see myself in a position to speak out proper recommendations. I think that would go too far… Everybody is adult enough and everybody lives in a free country, which is a good thing.”
For a man of such rigorous intellect, with an iron grip on his players’ every on-field action and who occupies a position of public prominence, this was jarringly weak.
It suggested someone afraid to lay down the law in his own dressing room, lest he risk losing it.
While Tuchel was right that taking a vaccine remains a personal decision, classing himself as unqualified to recommend others do so was an abdication of basic common sense.
The virtues of vaccines have been repeatedly publicised by evidence-based medical science and public health authorities around the globe. Vaccine hesitancy, on the other hand, stems mainly from the deranged theories of wingnut conspiracy peddlers.
You don’t even need to be a Champions League-winning master tactician to recommend the right course of action to your players. Even Steve Bruce and Neil Warnock, neither in the running for the Nobel prize, were able to do so earlier this season.
“We’ve got a lot of players who haven’t had the jab,” said Bruce after it emerged that goalkeeper Karl Darlow had spent five nights in hospital with the virus. “It’s their prerogative but there are a lot of conspiracy theories out there. I would urge everybody to get jabbed, and that’s the advice of this country’s top medics.”
Up at Middlesbrough, Warnock too bemoaned the anti-vaxxers in his midst. “We are trying to get the lads to have injections if I’m honest,” Warnock said in August, admitting that most of his squad had refused vaccines.
“I don’t know where they’re getting their advice from, but I think it’s the wrong advice. It’s not just for themselves, it’s what they could do to other people if they have it…Who’s to say they don’t go down to London and see their grandparents or what have you and if they caught it, I just think it’s irresponsible.”
See Thomas, it’s not hard. And when it comes to the impact on society — as even Neil Warnock can see — it’s just basic decency.
Stories about vaccine hesitancy among sports stars began to emerge as global rollouts progressed over the summer. Sportspeople are hyper-conscious about what goes into their bodies. They are of the demographic vulnerable to fake online agendas. Many live isolated, privileged existences, prone to developing an undue sense of self-importance and susceptible to dodgy dressing room scuttlebutt.
As such, there was understanding and an effort to educate rather than enforce. Jonathan Van Tam, the UK’s deputy chief medical officer, as if he had nothing better to do, recorded a three-minute video which was sent to football clubs dispelling myths about the vaccine and explaining its benefits, including how it would free players from many of the testing and isolating restrictions currently in place.
But, no different than wider global society, a deluded rump remains. As it prepares for its season opening next week, the NBA is wrestling with how to deal with a high-profile group of vaccine refuseniks. The best known of these is Kyrie Irving, the Brooklyn Nets star who risks not being allowed to play home games because of his refusal to declare vaccine status.
Local laws in New York and San Francisco mean non-vaccinated players will be unable to enter basketball arenas.
According to a report in Rolling Stone magazine, Irving recently started following and liking Instagram posts by a conspiracy theorist who claimed that vaccines were being used by “secret societies” to implant microchips in order to connect black people to a master computer for “a plan of Satan.”
Rolling Stone says such misinformation has spread around NBA dressing rooms. Irving is vice president of the players’ union, who this summer bluntly faced down a proposal from the NBA that all players must be vaccinated before the start of the new season.
Irving is not alone. “I believe it is your God-given right to decide if taking the vaccine is right for you! Period!” Orlando Magic forward Jonathan Isaac tweeted on Sunday.
Legendary former player Kareem Abdul Jabaar has led the campaign in favour of vaccines, calling for non-vaccinated players to be removed from NBA rosters. “I don’t think that they are behaving like good team-mates or good citizens,” Kareem told CNN. “This is a war that we’re involved in. And masks and vaccines — they are the weapons that we use to fight this war.”
He is not exaggerating: Over 2,000 people a day are dying of Covid-19 in the USA. Full vaccination is at 55%, with rates of people getting shots currently at their lowest since January. NBA stars reflect broader society but they also shape it.
Thomas Tuchel’s words echoed Tyrone joint-manager Fergal Logan’s mealy-mouthed attitude to vaccinations as revealed in an interview with this newspaper during the summer. But the time for kid gloves on vaccine hesitancy is over.
This week, Ireland topped a Bloomberg poll of the best countries in the world in terms of coping with Covid. Why? Because our vaccination rates are high. Why? Partly, because you can’t get into pubs without them. As Kareem Abdul Jabaar suggests, hit them where it hurts.
Much of the vaccine-sceptic agenda — aside from the nutty stuff — centres around claims about individual rights. This is an era when everyone is allowed to have their own truth, even if it’s false.
But why should their ignorance be allowed to risk the lives of others? Tuchel is reportedly a hard taskmaster in the training ground, but his softly, softly attitude to vaccinations is not just disappointing, it is dangerous.
