They’re spending Independence Day in lockdown.
Every member of Columbus Crew SC was quarantined within Disney World’s “bubble zone” hotel after a player tested positive for coronavirus, the team announced Thursday. The news follows six FC Dallas players testing positive days earlier at the same central Florida resort complex.
Follow-up tests on remaining Crew personnel reportedly came back negative, but according to MLS figures, at least seven players remain in isolation as they fight infection.
The Fourth of July is tomorrow.
You know what these guys deserve? All of them? A tranquil backyard barbecue. That’s not in the cards, though, because they’re on lockdown, separated from their families in a gaudy hotel, sweating it out in a situation that was completely unnecessary to begin with. And for what? An exhibition tournament.
It’s indecent, Don Garber! MLS players, coaches, and staffers should be drinking, barbecuing, and detonating small explosives. It’s been a hell of a year, and they deserve that much, right? Instead you have locked your employees together, in arbitrarily close quarters, with a contagious disease set upon them.
I hope someone kicks over your grill.
The inaugural MLS Is Back tournament is still on track to start soon. League officials are unwilling to call off the exhibition, and remain vague about contingency plans in the event of widespread infection — a worst-case scenario that appears more likely each day.
Tremendous sympathies this Independence Day weekend to all members of the MLS organization locked down in Disney Bubble Quarantine. You deserve better.