News on Saturday morning that two Newcastle United stars have left the UK as the Coronavirus impacts.
It seems an awful long time ago but only eight days ago the club released a statement (see below) giving an overview of how they were dealing with the situation.
Within that statement it included the news that the training ground would be shut for two weeks and players given personal training programmes to do remotely.
Whilst most players have stayed on Tyneside, the Chronicle have revealed that two Newcastle United stars left the UK after the training ground shut down.
They say Joelinton is now in Brazil, where he has a young son.
Whilst Christian Atsu has travelled to Ghana.
Wherever the players are, the GPS data is being monitored remotely by Newcastle United staff.
Professional football in England was originally suspended until at least 3 April 2020 but this week we saw the 30 April 2020 as the new date when at the very earliest football might start again.
Fair to say nobody is counting on seeing football for sure in early May but if it did happen, potentially there could be problems regarding players who need to travel back into the UK, depending on what the government rules are at the time.
The Mag – Friday 13 March 2020:
Newcastle United have released an official statement on the Coronavirus situation.
The NUFC statement was published at 2pm on Friday and follows the Premier League and others suspending matches until at least 4 April 2020.
In the statement, Newcastle United confirm that no players or technical staff currently have coronavirus or are exhibiting any symptoms.
They also say they are shutting down all on-site football operations at the club’s Training Centre and Academy for a minimum of two weeks.
