Jones calls for clubs to be punished over Xmas parties amid Covid chaos call-offs

Hatters Boss Nathan Jones has called for punishments of clubs that allowed Christmas parties to go ahead but then called off games due to Covid outbreaks.

Luton’s clash at home to Bristol City is one of only four Championship games taking place this Boxing Day, due to coronavirus call-offs, as Town took the diligent approach to cancelling player and staff shindigs, asking stars to sacrifice a festive knees up for the good of the club and the integrity of the competition.

It hasn’t stopped sporadic cases in the camp, but nothing that would lead to the club calling off games.

Jones said: “It’s crazy times, let’s just say that, we’ve got to be very diligent, we’re reminding the players of their responsibilities, but it’s rife and even though it’s not as dangerous, you could say. It’s transmissible and that’s the thing, because with flu being cured completely, now everything’s Covid, so we’ve got to be very, very careful and that’s it.

“We’ve had some sporadic cases, we haven’t had an outbreak as such, we’ve had people going down, people coming back, people who have been double jabbed have had it and they can come back after six days. So, it’s not decimated us in anyway and got to a point where we’ve had to call a game off, but it’s been around, so the diligence has to be high as always.

“I have my own views on this, it’s very difficult to come out and say those but it’s one of those things, let’s just say we’ve got to be very careful.

“With the greatest respect to everyone it’s very difficult. What we do here, is we’ve said, look, the most important thing is health, but the second thing, we are Luton Town, we want to play football matches. We want to keep this going, we want to make sure we do right, so we ask players to sacrifice certain things.

“I know of clubs going out for a Christmas party where all the squad is there and they’re calling games off. That, for me, is frivolous and that, for me, should be punishable.

“We called our Christmas party off because we knew what they were doing, but I know categorically that every squad that has been to somewhere like Winter Wonderland, or a place like that, where people can mix and mingle, pretty much has had their game called off, as you’re going to pick up things.

“We’ve been not the victim, the inadvertent victim of that, so for us, we’ve asked them (Luton players) to be really diligent, to sacrifice certain things for the good of our club, for the integrity of everything and they’ve done that.

“Yes, it’s impossible to stay totally Covid free, because it’s everywhere in the world and in Britain and in England and in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, London, or wherever it is, we’ve just asked them to be diligent.”

The Hatters’ match last weekend fell foul of the virus ripping through Reading’s squad and Jones added: “It was well publicised, Reading had 10 injuries, then we had the game called off, so it’s disappointing. We wanted the integrity kept of everything that we do and the club do.

“Reading were unfortunate enough to be in a precarious position with injuries and Covid, so it was the right thing to do, because we don’t want to put anyone at risk, one iota, what we hope is that we don’t have too many called off, it kills momentum, you’ve got to start back up again and so on, but we can’t do anything. Health is paramount, but then once health can be assured, we want the games to be played.”