Danny Rose has claimed Premier League footballers are being treated like “lab rats” for the sake of providing entertainment during the coronavirus pandemic.
England international Rose made his analogy in an interview with the Lockdown Tactics podcast, hosted by former Scotland striker Kris Boyd and West Ham midfielder Robert Snodgrass.
“I’m dying to get back to football,” Rose said. “I know people are obviously going through this coronavirus pandemic a lot worse than me, so I don’t want to be here complaining about anything.
“But just off the fact people are suggesting we should go back to football, it’s basically like we’re guinea pigs or lab rats, that we’re going to go back to this phase and see if it works or not.
“I can just imagine people at home saying they [footballers] earn this amount of money so they should be going back.
“So for stuff like that where I just think ‘this is not worth the hassle’, I could be potentially risking my health for people’s entertainment, and that’s just not something I want to be involved in, if I’m honest with you.”
On Tuesday, it was revealed that six people, spread across three Premier League clubs had tested positive for coronavirus and would go into self-isolation.
Rose has read up on the ‘Project Restart’ plans, amid attempts to get English football up and running in June.
The 29-year-old left-back is spending the second half of the season at Newcastle United, on loan from Tottenham.
He revealed Magpies boss Steve Bruce had called him after he used crude terms when stressing the nation’s morale was not his priority, amid the talks of rushing football back to lift spirits.
“I didn’t think too much to it and then I was having my breakfast the next day and saw Steve Bruce coming up on my phone,” Rose said.
“I spoke to him and he said I need to word things a bit better if I’m going to do things like that.
“He explained the measures they’re going to, to try and make everything safe, but obviously I’ve seen the headlines and I do – we do, as footballers and people in the public eye – we have a platform and maybe I could have worded what I said a little bit better.
“But I do feel exactly how you’re feeling, that six weeks ago [health secretary] Matt Hancock was saying footballers need to halve their wages and now six weeks later we’re needed to try to entertain people.
“People need to make their minds up: it’s one or the other.”
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