Woman takes sick leave to attend Euro 2020, loses job after boss sees her on TV
- IndiaGlitz, [Thursday,July 15 2021] Sports News
A woman, identified as Nina Farooqi, from England lost her job recently after she called in sick to work to attend the UEFA Euro 2020 semi-final match between England and Denmark at the Wembley stadium.
The 37-year-old woman, who secured a ticket to be part of the historic match, witnessed England defeating Denmark to enter the final of the tournament after 55 long years. However, she had taken sick leave to attend the match and it had majorly backfired after her boss spotted her on the TV screen in the stadium during the 39th minute of the game. Speaking about the incident, Nina was reportedly quoted as saying, “They said they’d seen I’d been at the game, and I was honest about why I did it. But I didn’t get any sympathy at all and they said that’s it.”
She added, “That’s their call and the consequence of what I did. It’s mixed emotions: we’re through to the final, I’m still on that high, but I’ve also lost my job. There is a bit of regret, no one wants to get fired, but then also I would have hated the regret of missing out. I’d do it all over again. This hasn’t come around since 1996, I vividly remember crying on my mum’s sofa when Gareth Southgate missed his penalty, and the football fan in me just couldn’t do it. Football is my life.”
Meanwhile, Nina’s employer said that the company had no choice but to take action against her as she had allegedly breached her employment contract. He stated, “As a business we value honesty and integrity, and we don’t tolerate any employee taking advantage of our policies. Like many businesses will be doing across the county, our staff will be having Monday morning off to hopefully recover from celebrating an England win.”