NIR BITTON has called for international football to be cancelled during the Covid-19 pandemic as the Celtic utility man opened up on the debilitating impact the virus had on him last month.

The Israeli tested positive for Coronavirus after his nation lost to Scotland on penalties at Hampden in the Euro 2020 play-off semi-final, and he admits at being surprised by the toll it took on him as an elite sportsman.

The experience has left him in no doubt that international football should be mothballed until it is safer for players to travel and mix together with those from other clubs across the world.

“If it was my decision, I would cancel it,” Bitton said. “But it’s not my decision. There is nothing I can do about it.

“Since I came back to Celtic in June we have been in a bubble. We are not allowed to go to restaurants. We are not allowed to have people in the house.

“We are in small circle for four or five months already. Then you go to the national team and you are mixed up with a lot of players from different countries. You don’t know where they have been.

“It’s just all over the place. That’s why I am saying it is quite impossible to control it at international level. And you need to be lucky to not get it.

There is nothing we can do about it. As players we do what we are told. If we get told to go the national team, we go to the national team. If we get told to stay here, we stay here. There is nothing we can do about it.

“It can affect you as a team, it can affect you as an individual. At the end of the day if you go to the national team you need to be sensible and make sure you minimise the risk of getting it. Hopefully we will come back Covid-free.”

Bitton has impressed for Celtic this season playing as a centre-back either side of his Coronavirus diagnosis, with manager Neil Lennon expressing his delight at his assured display against Aberdeen at the weekend.

He is just delighted to be back out on the pitch at all though after his harrowing experience with Covid-19, and he hopes his story will encourage other young, fit people to take the restrictions that are currently in place seriously.

“I’m back to normal now but it was difficult during those first few days,” he said.

“No one really knows how Covid is going to affect you. It doesn’t matter how old you are or how fit you are.

“I woke up in the hotel after the Scotland game with no sense of taste or smell. I went for a test and the result came back positive. I was just thinking I was unlucky, but there’s nothing you can do about it.

“By the night it was coming at me from everywhere. I had a fever, my muscles hurt, my head was sore, it hit me really hard.

“It lasted about three or four days and I slowly started getting back to normal and now I feel back to normal.

“Before I got the virus I really underestimated it – but now I have completely changed my mind.

“It’s important to be sensible and do what the government asks us to do. It can affect you easy or very hard, but you don’t want anything to happen to your parents or grandparents. That’s the most important thing.

“In the first few days you need to get tests on your heart, your bloods and such things, to see how it’s affecting you.

“I wouldn’t say it was scary as such, but you know the beginning of the virus, you don’t know how it’s going to end.

“You are going in to the unknown, but I’m happy it’s behind me.”