Former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan has explained why Premier League clubs must be fined if their players break covid-19 rules.
Simon Jordan insists Premier League clubs should be handed £1m fines if any of their players are deemed to have broken coronavirus rules and guidelines.
His comments come after a number of top stars in the English top-flight were publicly reported to have broken given rules over the Christmas and New Year period.
Manchester City’s Benjamin Mendy happens to fall in this category after hosting a party where he flaunted current covid-19 rules.
Tottenham trio Giovani Lo Celso, Erik Lamela, and Sergio Reguilon, alongside West Ham star Manuel Lanzini was also found guilty of similar events.
Elsewhere, Luka Milivojevic and Aleksandar Mitrovic were among the players also found to have broken lockdown rules.
Simon Jordan it is a club’s responsibility to keep their players in check and believes they should be fined if they can call their stars to order.
He told talkSPORT: “I think it becomes a club’s responsibility. If you can’t communicate with your players clearly.”
“People talk about making mistakes. I hate this expression, ‘making mistakes’. They didn’t make a mistake, they made a choice.”
“A mistake is crossing the road, not looking the right way and getting run over. What isn’t a mistake is choosing to do something that you know you shouldn’t do.”
Jordan continued: “Perhaps the clubs should be fined. Perhaps the clubs should get a £1m fine for every single time a player breaches a COVID set of regulations to this level that it concentrates the minds of clubs.”
“The clubs have a responsibility to get it through to their players and get it across to their players.”
If that wasn’t enough, Jordan was also not pleased with City boss Pep Guardiola who chose to defend Mendy after he was clearly caught on the wrong side of current rules.
He added: “The reality is Pep Guardiola went out and defended a player that broke the rules and chose to defend him for the very reasons that you understand that football doesn’t grasp the nettle.”
“We can talk about players being banned and we can talk about players being fined. One thing I find that concentrates a player’s mind is money.”
“Try fining a player £300,000-a-week, £600,000-a-week and he’ll soon get his hackles up about not liking it.”
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