Third Brighton player tests positive for coronavirus ahead of Premier League Project Restart

Tom Doyle10 May 2020

A third Brighton player has tested positive for coronavirus, the club's chief executive Paul Barber has confirmed.

The news comes ahead of Monday's crunch Premier League meeting, where clubs are expected to vote on Project Restart's plans to complete the season at neutral venues.

Brighton have been vocally critical of that idea, insisting that the campaign should be played out on a home-and-away basis.

The Press Association reports that the unnamed Brighton player will go into 14-day isolation while he recovers from the virus.

Two other players, whose names have also not been revealed by the club, contracted the virus earlier in the pandemic. They are understood to have since recovered but it is not clear whether or not they have returned to training yet.

According to PA, the rest of the Brighton squad will continue to train as they have been doing during the lockdown, both at home and in solo sessions at the club's training ground.

Barber told Sky Sports News: "Unfortunately we have had a third player test positive just yesterday.

"Despite all the measures we have all been taking over the last few weeks, when the players haven't been involved in taking any significant training at all, we have still suffered another player testing positive for the virus.

"There are concerns and I think it is normal for all clubs to have those concerns. We want to make sure we do all that we can that the protocols that are put into place are safe and secure and mitigate the risk."

Regarding Brighton's stance on Project Restart, Barber says all 20 top-flight clubs will act with a degree of self-interest regarding their current position in the table.

"People will accuse us of self-interest, I totally understand that, but at this stage of the season there is self-interest at every level of the table," he added.

"There is as much self-interest at the top as there is at the bottom, there is as much self-interest in the middle as there is at the bottom.

"Everyone has different objectives for the season and we are all looking to play out the season, if it is safe to do so.

"We really do want to play and we want to make sure the competition stays as fair as it can be despite these exceptional circumstances that we are facing."

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