Michael van Gerwen called the Alexandra Palace, where the World Darts Championship is currently played, “a huge corona bomb”, but that apparently did not stop the top players of Leicester City from an apparently risky visit. James Maddison, Harvey Barnes and Hamza Choudhury are under fire in England after it became clear that they were present during the quarter-finals of the darts tournament on Saturday night.
Maddison, Barnes and Choudhury’s outing to the Ally Pally is extremely sensitive, especially now that numerous Premier League matches have had to be postponed due to corona outbreaks. Actually, the trio with Leicester City should also have played against Norwich City on New Year’s Day, but due to a large number of infections at the opponent, the game was postponed.
Great banter from James Maddison and Harvey Barnes here. However, with COVID rife within the Premier League right now, and games being called off left and centre, I don’t know if going to the darts is the smartest idea… https://t.co/0MGtrgdIXv
— Louis Dangoor (@TheLouisDangoor) January 1, 2022
Van Gerwen, the best Dutch darts player, recently had to drop out of the Darts World Cup due to a positive corona test. The current number three in the world was told that four days ago, just before he would play the sixteenth final against Chris Dobey. Van Gerwen then lashed out at the organization of the World Darts Championship. “The access control for the fans is just not strong enough,” said the three-time world champion. “It’s just one big corona bomb in there now. It’s as leaky as a basket, and I couldn’t help it. That makes it so sour.”
In the United Kingdom, the corona infection figures are rising rapidly, but despite the advance of the so-called omikron variant, the public at Alexandra Palace remains unabated. The three Leicester City players watched the Peter Wright – Callan Rydz and Gerwyn Price – Michael Smith quarter-final matches with 3,000 supporters on Saturday evening.