Why do they play football in excessive heat?

For the past couple of weeks, the met office has been issuing warnings for high temperatures, warning people not to venture outside if not absolutely necessary, employers to take all precautions for the wellbeing of their staff and for all to avoid excessive physical exercise.

So it came as a shock to me to hear that Aek Larnaca (or was it Uefa) decided to kick off their Champions League qualifier game against the Danish side Midtjylland at 6.30pm!

Do these government directives not apply to footballers? Are they not humans after all? What does Pasp (the footballer’s association) or Uefa have to say about this? Probably Aek (or Uefa) will say that the directives were valid until 5.00 (or 6.00) and they started the game at 6.30pm.

This is not the first time I was told that an Aek game had an early kick-off for a European game, and it does not take a genius to figure out why.

It appears that the wellbeing of both sets of players is not very high on their (or Uefa’s) agenda, but particularly a team from northern Europe not used to training and playing in excessive heat. Just imagine, God forbid, if a player collapsed during the game!

«Eυ αγωνίζεσθαι» (fair play) in all its glory.