Tammy Abraham apologizes for non-socially distanced surprise birthday party

Tammy Abraham turned 23 years of age on Friday, but with a Chelsea game early on Saturday, there was little time or opportunity to celebrate. So instead, his friends and family decided to throw a surprise party for him at his place on Saturday night. After all, no club football for two weeks, right?

Unfortunately, the house party broke various COVID-19 restrictions, including the “rule of six”, which is punishable by a £10,000 fine. Abraham also faces sentencing in the court social media and public opinion. More importantly, potentially exposing himself to the virus — not many masks in sight in the photos and videos that have leaked from the gathering! — also puts others at risk, including his England teammates, two of whom were also present at the party: Jadon Sancho and Ben Chilwell.

Those three will now be hoping to avoid the fates of Mason Greenwood and Phil Foden, who broke quarantine when England were in Iceland during the last international break, and have not been called up this time around. Abraham has issued a statement of apology already, promising to learn form this moment.

“I arrived home to find a small surprise gathering.

“Though I was totally unaware this was planned, I would like to wholeheartedly apologise for the naivety shown for the organisation and attending of this gathering.

“All I can do now is learn from it, apologise to everyone and ensure it never happens again.”

-Tammy Abraham; source: The Sun via PA

The original tabloid report claims that the FA have already looked into the incident and decided to take no action. The PA have contacted the FA as well for comment, but have not heard back yet.

With coronavirus cases on the rise in Europe and England once again, such events are obviously highly irresponsible. The players involved are all quite young still, but they should certainly know better by now. Abraham himself talked about how he’d move out of his parents’ house for Project Restart to ensure that they remain as protected as can be under the circumstances. But he also decided to go to Greece in the offseason and in turn negatively affecting our preseason preparations by having to quarantine alongside several Chelsea teammates upon their return (with at least some of them testing positive for COVID-19).

Obviously, after six months of this pandemic, we’re all a little fatigued by the restrictions and the worries, not to mention the financial and social impact of it all on our lives. But we have to stay responsible as much as possible.

Lessons will surely be learned of course — just like when Mason Mount and Declan Rice broke quarantine rules back in the spring — but it remains to be seen if that’s all that’s going to come from this unfortunate situation.