West Ham's Michail Antonio may be forced to wear Tottenham shirt after Fifa 20 bet with Ryan Sessegnon

Battle: Ryan Sessegnon and Michail Antonio are taking their club rivalries to esports.
Twitter/RyanSessegnon
Joe Krishnan17 March 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has forced football clubs to shut down their training facilities and advise their players to stay inside, meaning some footballers have been turning to esports to get their taste of the action.

With the Premier League fixtures postponed until April 3 at the earliest due to Covid-19, enticing clashes such as the London derby clash between Tottenham and West Ham - originally scheduled for Friday - will no longer take place.

So when West Ham forward Michail Antonio found himself at a loose end on Monday and keen to set up a game of Fifa 20, there would have surely been hundreds of fans desperate to play.

The 30-year-old put out a message via his Twitter account calling for prospective challengers to make themselves known and by doing so, caught the attention of Tottenham's Ryan Sessegnon.

After agreeing to the match-up, the pair engaged in a bit of pre-match banter instigated by Antonio telling Sessegnon: "You ain't ready for this."

Sessegnon hit back in the war of words with emojis, suggesting his opponent should showcase his skills rather than his words.

At which point, Antonio decided to raise the stakes: the loser gives a traditional Fifa apology while wearing the other's club shirt. This really was going to be Tottenham against West Ham after all, with pride - not points - on the line.

It remains to be seen whether the two players will host the game live on streaming platforms such as Twitch, allowing viewers deprived of their dose of football to catch the action.

But Sessegnon confirmed the clash is going ahead on Friday and the 20-year-old even told his club to get a shirt ready. "Gonna need a shirt for @michailantonio @spursofficial! #COYS," he tweeted.

Even with the coronavirus, footballers are still keeping us on the edge of our seats.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in