Watford captain, Troy Deeney revealed people told him they wished his baby son would contract coronavirus after he chose not to return to training.
Troy Deeney’s child has had breathing difficulties and the captain did not want to place him in “more danger”. Deeney raised concerns over the increased coronavirus risk to black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) players. Not receiving relevant answers to his concerns pushed the captain into refusing to get back to training.
For this reason, the 31-year-old received hurtful comments of people wishing his son could contract COVID-19.
“I saw some comments in regards to my son. People saying, I hope your son gets corona”. Expressed the captain.
“That’s the hard part of me. If you respond to that, people then go: Ah, we’ve got him, and they keep doing it”.
“In a time where it’s all about mental health and everyone says: Speak up, speak out, please speak. Dany Rose spoke out and I spoke out and we just got absolutely hammered and battered for it”.
“So, people see that and go ‘Woah’ and it’s not just as that gets it. The missus gets direct messages and you’ll be walking down the street and people will be like: Oh, I’m at work, you got to work”.
On Wednesday, Premier League clubs unanimously voted to resume contact training. But, Watford is not expected to resume group training until next week.
Deeney has spoken with England’s deputy chief medical officer, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, and is expected to return to club training next week.
“He’s been doing very, very good research and there is a lot of goodwill on his part to tell me, ultimately, that I’m going to be looked after as best as they can and there is going to be some form of risk for all of us going to work”. Added Deeney.
Nonetheless, the captain is due to resume training next week.