LONDON • No Liverpool player will be forced to train if he does not feel safe to do so, manager Jurgen Klopp said yesterday after the Premier League leaders' first training session for more than nine weeks.
The league has been halted since March 13 due to the Covid-19 pandemic but clubs can now train in small groups.
Klopp told Sky Sports television after a first session with 10 players on a sunny day at Melwood that he expected all his players to show up but they were under no pressure.
"It's their choice so that's clear," said the German, who had two more training groups later on Wednesday. "I said before the session, 'You are here on free will. Usually you sign a contract and then you have to be in when I tell you. In this case, if you don't feel safe, you don't have to be here.'
"There are no restrictions, no punishment, nothing... We would never put anybody in danger to do what we want to do. Yes, we love football, and yes, it's our job but it's not more important than our lives or the lives of other people."
While no Liverpool player has openly voiced opposition to restarting the competition or returning to training, several others have.
Yesterday, these players, including Watford's Troy Deeney and Tottenham's Danny Rose, received the backing of the head of the global players' union FIFPro, who cautioned that it would be "inhumane and unacceptable" if these players were to be punished for taking such a stance, even though there is no suggestion of that at present.
"If these players are being pressured or potentially facing disciplinary actions, we feel that is very much unacceptable," Jonas Baer-Hoffmann told reporters.
"No system can actually exclude the risk of infection, so it is a question about the probability by which you minimise that risk and many of the systems that we are seeing and reading about... still leave many, many gaps and many risks."
One such risk concerns the accuracy of the privately-conducted tests used by the league. The Daily Mail yesterday reported that there is an average of 10 false negative or positive readings for every 800 tests done by Hong Kong-based biotechnology firm Prenetics.
On Tuesday, it was revealed that there were six positive Covid-19 cases discovered from 748 tests conducted on Sunday and Monday. Watford defender Adrian Mariappa, Burnley assistant manager Ian Woan, and two Hornets staff were among them. All will serve a seven-day quarantine order.
Having watched the Bundesliga in his native Germany resume last weekend without fans, Klopp is sure his players will not lack motivation, even if shorn of home support when the action resumes.
"The competition will make the intensity," he said. "All the physical numbers of the games in Germany were incredibly high, so like 117 or 118 km running, without anybody shouting at you that you have to run. Just because you want it, because you do it for your teammates."
Even yesterday, when groups of only five trained on separate pitches, Klopp said "it looked like football".
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS
