Son questions why sporting events still continued in March 2020

Son's wait for answers over 2020 sporting events

14 minutes ago Share Save Rumeana Jahangir BBC News, Liverpool Share Save

Getty Images About 52,000 fans gathered for Liverpool v Atletico Madrid, two days before elite football was halted on 13 March 2020

A son whose father fell ill after attending a football match in March 2020 is asking why the government did not cancel sporting events sooner. Jamie Mawson's father Richard was among 52,000 spectators – including 3,000 Spanish football fans – who were allowed to attend a Champions League match between Liverpool and Atletico Madrid at Anfield on 11 March 2020. It was also the same day the World Health Organisation categorised coronavirus as a pandemic. But the UK were yet to introduce restrictions on gatherings and travel. Jamie recalls: "We were watching Spain and Italy where people were getting carried out in body bags and they let mass gatherings go ahead here."

He says his dad would be on the phone two or three times a day that week, asking: "Do you think this match should be going ahead?" "He was really conscious about going to the game however the government let it go ahead along with Cheltenham horse racing." According to estimates, there were 41 and 37 additional deaths a month afterwards in hospitals in Liverpool and Cheltenham respectively. Healthcare researchers also believe thousands more were infected following gatherings linked to the Anfield match and the four-day horse racing festival.

Richard Mawson, pictured with his wife Mary, had been a season-ticket holder at Liverpool

In early March, partial lockdown had already been implemented in Madrid, which was the epicentre of the outbreak in Spain. Two days before the match, Liverpool fans' group The Spirit Of Shankly raised concerns at a council-chaired safety meeting but were told it would go ahead in line with government advice. On the day of the game, England's deputy chief medical officer said the UK was "following the science and the evidence" in not banning sports events, because large gatherings "are not seen to be something which is going to have a big effect". Later that night, Mr Mawson, aged 70, joined thousands of other fans as he took the short walk from his home near Stanley Park to the stadium.

Getty Images About 3,000 Atletico Madrid fans arrived in Liverpool for the game on 11 March 2020

Some days after the game, Mr Mawson felt ill and struggled with breathing, prompting his wife to ring for an ambulance. He was diagnosed in hospital with coronavirus and Jamie, unable to visit his father due to lockdown restrictions, phoned him. "He was really, really struggling and I was saying you'll be fine. His last words was 'I've got to go, I can't breathe'." Mr Mawson's condition deteriorated and he died on 17 April. "It's a tough ask to say your goodbyes over a video link - that was the most heartbreaking thing I have ever experienced," says Jamie. "We were all upset and crying and screaming. "I pleaded with the nurse to hold his hand and she was like an angel to us. She held his hand while he passed."

Getty Images Some fans took precautions at Anfield, which ended up hosting the last game in England before lockdown

It is not possible to say for certain where Mr Mawson caught coronavirus, however a scientific study found the Anfield game and Cheltenham Festival "caused increased suffering and death". Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram highlights the discrepancy between a lack of restrictions in the UK at the time and those of Spanish authorities, who had "prevented Atletico fans from watching their team at home but they were allowed to travel across Europe and go to Anfield for that particular game". Rotheram believes "national government was in absolute chaos" as opinions differed among scientists and politicians over when to introduce restrictions. At the Covid inquiry, England's chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty said he felt, in early 2020, there was "no good evidence" that prohibitions on mass gatherings would affect transmission and football fans would crowd into pubs instead. However he now believes lockdown on 23 March 2020 was imposed "a bit too late", while the then prime minister Boris Johnson told the inquiry "with hindsight" mass gatherings should have been stopped earlier.

Reuters Racegoers were encouraged to use sanitisers at the 2020 Cheltenham Festival, which drew more than 250,000 people

Rotheram says: "We're all a lot better educated and informed around pandemics now than we ever have been. "But that doesn't in any way mean the government gets off because they were the people who were charged with the safety of the nation and it was their preparedness that let all of us down." He says public health officials are "much better prepared" should there be a similar situation in the future, with work being carried out at The Pandemic Institute established in Liverpool in 2021. Jamie believes it was a "big, big mistake" that the Anfield game and Cheltenham festival were allowed to go ahead. He adds there has been "a lot of anger" among bereaved families and others affected by Covid. "I want to know who is held accountable and responsible for the thousands of deaths. Personally I think it was the previous government." He is now part of the Covid Bereaved Families for Justice group, represented at the national inquiry by the barrister Pete Weatherby KC, who has highlighted others that died after the Anfield game. Jamie says: "I don't want another generation to go through what we had to go through - 230,000 deaths. It's just about being prepared."

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