Written by CF Montréal, a team within Major League Soccer announced that they traded a player, Erik Hurtado, to the Columbus Crew SC. Trades happen every day in all professional sports leagues across the world, with most trades receiving little fanfare. However, this trade solely happened because the athlete was not vaccinated against COVID-19.
Will future athletes being considered for a draft, trade, or being selected in free agency now be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19? Most professional teams and leagues have not indicated what current or future rules will be concerning vaccinations. CF Montréal was trying to get back to Montréal after being prohibited from doing so by the government. So there was a sense of urgency by the club to do something with their unvaccinated player. However, what if there was not another team willing to trade for Erik Hurtado, would CF Montréal have released him from his contract? It would be extremely interesting to know what they would have done and what legal, social, and cultural issues would have followed if teams began getting rid of unvaccinated athletes.
Erik Hurtado stated that he was “not comfortable taking the vaccine”, which many people across the world are not comfortable with yet. But what if an athlete was unable to receive a vaccine due to a medical condition or religious reasons? What legal, moral, and ethical grounds would a team have to discharge a player? In those cases, if athletes could not be traded, would they just cut a player so the team could travel to competition, or in the case of CF Montréal, to travel back home? It is an interesting discussion to have, not because a player was dropped from a roster, since this same scenario is bound to happen in the future. This is why leaders of these teams must openly communicate, set realistic expectations, and plan for the worst case scenario. If they include athletes as stakeholders in these discussions and planning, interesting solutions might be found and included in planning. However, including athletes as stakeholders in a sports organization is really a reflection of its leadership and culture. If there is a positive culture within the organization, it may reveal that athletes are prioritized over the bottom line.