John Aldridge with a strong message for the Premier League amid threat of fan ban

With the Welsh governments forcing all sport to go behind closed doors and Scotland enforcing a limit of 500 spectators for sport from St Stephen's Day, there is an expectation that England would follow suit.

Yet UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has no confirmed that he will not introduce any fresh Covid restrictions before Christmas, which will allow the PDC World Darts Championships to continue with fans for now.

There is an expectation that new restrictions will be introduced after December 29th, when British MP's are expected to vote on new restrictions.

That may well include a return to football without spectators and Sunday World columnist Aldridge insists that is an unpalatable prospect.

"The Premier League is coming under pressure to shut down amid a nightmare Covid surge in England, but I think one key decision needs to be taken into account here," began Aldridge.

"If fans are banned from attending matches, I think the Premier League should wait until they are allowed back in before we resume.

"None of us want to revisit the misery of watching games played in empty stadiums and after most of us in the UK have taken three vaccines in the last year, we should be able to expect to live some kind of normal life.

"I’m all for the vaccines and any conspiracy theorists reading this need to get a grip of themselves and realise that Covid is real, it’s killing people every day and a lot of those that are dying are the anti-vaxxers who want to believe what some clown tells them because he wants to get a few more subscribers to his YouTube channel.

"Well, as Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said in his media briefings last week, I’d rather believe scientists than the conspiracy theorists, so get your jabs if you haven’t had them yet.

"Most of us have done our bit by getting vaccinations and now we deserve the right to go to matches, even if we have to show we’ve had the jabs before we get into the ground.

"Let’s try to keep the matches going because a Christmas without football would be a big blow for us all."