FOOTBALLERS who continue to celebrate goals by hugging and kissing are “brainless,” according to the Tory chairman of the key parliamentary sports committee.

MP Julian Knight relaunched his campaign against footballers’ indiscretions as the pandemic reached grim new milestones and saw repeats of government mismanagement, including its inability to provide decent free school meals.

Manchester City and Fulham players crowded together after scoring in their respective matches on Wednesday night, in spite of reminders from the Premier League to strictly observe protocols on the avoidance of unnecessary contact amid the worsening of the pandemic.

City boss Pep Guardiola defended his players — who, like the rest of the Premier League and EFL, are now tested twice weekly — saying: “Sometimes the brain is a subconscious one and you are just there in the moment, you are not thinking.”

It echoed comments by Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder, who said on Tuesday that it is “unnatural and unreal” for people to think that footballers should not hug each other after a goal is scored.

But Knight, who heads the digital, culture, media and sport committee, said: “Some of the scenes we have seen have been brainless and give out an awful message.”

Knight, who is also the author of a book on how to hide your money from the “prowling tax collector,” has targeted football throughout the pandemic, saying last April that the Premier League is in a “moral vacuum” and that players should sacrifice their salaries and do more for the NHS.

In June, when he implied that the financial losses faced by clubs are paltry compared with those suffered by charities, Sky Sports presenter Kelly Cates reminded him that Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford was “helping to feed vulnerable children over the summer that your government won’t.”

But as the level of infection remains high while the government continues to bungle the crisis — needing Rashford to intervene again this week to get kids fed — preventing the spread of the virus remains paramount for clubs and footballing bodies.

Captains and managers are currently attending a series of virtual meetings to talk through the changes to the Covid-19 protocols, but it is understood that these are not in reaction to the breaches witnessed on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Clubs are expected to investigate such breaches themselves, with the Premier League able to come over the top if it feels that not enough has been done.

The league’s chief executive Richard Masters has written to clubs outlining the changes to the protocols and the need to continue to double down on following the existing ones.

And EFL chief executive Trevor Birch has warned his league’s clubs that they are “under the microscope” as never before after professional sport was given government go-ahead to continue despite many other areas of life being placed under heavy restrictions in a new national lockdown.

Knight said that a decision on whether elite sport could continue was “a matter for governing bodies and the health experts.”

But he also cast doubt on whether the current plan for this summer’s delayed Euro 2020 could be executed.

“I am beginning to wonder whether the likes of the summer’s rescheduled Euro tournament will be open to go ahead as planned across 12 countries,” he said.

Competition organiser Uefa has reportedly considered reverting to a single-host format, with 2018 World Cup hosts Russia in the frame.