Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency:  Golder’s News And Sport

Arsenal legend Jens Lehmann has caused outrage after tweeting that “shutting down everything” amid the coronavirus outbreak could “cause more damage” and questioning whether it is “better staying home.”

In one tweet, the retired goalkeeper added a screenshot from EURO MOMO, a website that monitors mortality rates in Europe.

He captioned the tweet: “This is difficult to believe now. The mortality rate is lower than in previous years across Europe, based on data until 8. March 2020. So let’s wait until the end of this week for new data. What if we cause more damage to the well-being of people by shutting down everything?”

Lehmann, 50, also posted a Tweet that read: “Is it better staying home, being quarantined against sth we couldn’t measure in previous years, loosing the job now or the existence of a successful business? Will there be more people getting sick because of huge financial problems than through the virus?Who can answer that?” (sic)

Netizens slammed him for his comments with ‘andriafid’ saying: “You can be really happy to be blessed with a sporting talent. That would have been a really, really bitter life with this mental limitation.”

‘sitokigaming’ said: “Uff. Better stick to football.”

And ‘nicola_bonn’ said: “Jens, dear, you were a very good goalkeeper, you can certainly express yourself professionally on this topic. You should just shut up about pandemics and especially measures against them, honey.”

And ‘goonerowen’ added: “No offence Jens, you’re a cracking bloke, but stick to the goalkeeping on this one.”

And ‘i_am_thief’ said: “Did you hit the post too often?”

While ‘nurderiec’ said: “What’s up with you Jens?”

While ‘coombem1978’ said: “Almost like we need some medical experts or scientists with years of knowledge in researching viruses. At least we have a goalkeeper to advice us. Thats good enough for me.” (sic)

And ‘ChristophAuer3’ said: “Congratulations, one of the biggest prejudices against footballers has just been impressively proven. Thumbs up.”

The ViralTab page is created by and dedicated to professional, independent freelance journalists. It is a place for us to showcase our work. When our news is sold to our media partners, we will include the link here.