Football and the Coronavirus

robfosters · 20 Aug 2021 at 11:11

What do you make of Arsenal being refused a postponement after 4 players tested positive including the 2 main strikers?

How many players should be unavailable through Covid before the game can be postponed?

jonneymendoza · 20 Aug 2021 at 11:16

robfosters said:
What do you make of Arsenal being refused a postponement after 4 players tested positive including the 2 main strikers?

How many players should be unavailable through Covid before the game can be postponed?

What 4 players?

it was just 2, lacazette and abameyang

robfosters · 20 Aug 2021 at 11:22

jonneymendoza said:
What 4 players?

it was just 2, lacazette and abameyang

Willian and Runarsson

chroniclard · 20 Aug 2021 at 11:25

No different to having a few injuries, not enough to postpone a game.

CliffyG · 20 Aug 2021 at 11:51

chroniclard said:
No different to having a few injuries, not enough to postpone a game.

Agreed.

Martynt74 · 20 Aug 2021 at 13:14

Yeah, i think you'd need to be at the point where you can barely field a squad to get any postponements.

Converge · 20 Aug 2021 at 13:14

Just been reading about ol’Bruce saying a lot of his players haven’t been vaccinated. Makes me wonder how many haven’t in the PL.
Completely bizarre to think they wouldn’t.

Martynt74 · 20 Aug 2021 at 13:16

Converge said:
Just been reading about ol’Bruce saying a lot of his players haven’t been vaccinated. Makes me wonder how many haven’t in the PL.
Completely bizarre to think they wouldn’t.

To be fair, they're so well isolated in their bubbles and the vaccine is such an unknown on long term side effects that i imagine they don't want to risk it given they make their living from being at the very peak of their physical limits (generally).

Hell my main motive was so that i could go on holiday

fez · 20 Aug 2021 at 17:27

Martynt74 said:
To be fair, they're so well isolated in their bubbles and the vaccine is such an unknown on long term side effects that i imagine they don't want to risk it given they make their living from being at the very peak of their physical limits (generally).

Hell my main motive was so that i could go on holiday

Not wanting to get into an anti vaccine debate but we do know that the possible side-effects from the vaccine in the short term are far less serious than the symptoms of COVID in the short term. If players were that concerned about their long term careers most of them would take better care of their health, not do anything that is remotely dangerous and basically live in a super safe environment (which they could 100% afford). As it is, plenty of them got caught breaking lockdown rules over the past couple of years and have been buggering off abroad and mingling with loads of people.

I think its safe to say they are not worried about COVID and they are not paranoid about their long term health. Being paranoid about a safe vaccine would be stupid but obviously not out of the question. As you yourself said, plenty of peoples threshold to get it is very low. If they were than concerned I doubt a holiday would sway them.

BaZ87 · 23 Aug 2021 at 15:53

The upcoming International's are going to cause a few issues with a number of PL players scheduled to play games in red list countries and therefore having to carry out a 10 day quarantine on their return. The Egyptian FA have already confirmed that Liverpool are refusing to release Salah for the first of their 2 qualifiers, a home game in Egypt, as they're on the red list but will allow him to play the 2nd game in Gabon as they're on the amber list. A Liverpool based journo has confirmed that we'll be applying the same rules to all our International players so that will mean our Brazilian players will be prevented from traveling too.

It will be interesting to see whether anything changes in the next week with FA's and clubs lobbying the government to provide excemptions for players so they don't have to quarantine.

HangTime · 24 Aug 2021 at 16:18

Government may be a bit wary of this, if they allow footballers to bypass quarantine it may send the wrong message "millionaire primadonnas waltz through customs and straight to the club whilst hard working Brits hole up in hotels at their own expense".

omnomnom · 24 Aug 2021 at 17:38

HangTime said:
Government may be a bit wary of this, if they allow footballers to bypass quarantine it may send the wrong message "millionaire primadonnas waltz through customs and straight to the club whilst hard working Brits hole up in hotels at their own expense".

They already have exceptions in place so I don’t see how this would be any different

BaZ87 · 24 Aug 2021 at 19:03

Following on from the above, the PL have announced that all 20 clubs will not be allowing their players to travel to red list countries.

Re excemptions, I'm a little confused regarding what's changed because I thought elite sportsmen were excempt from quarantining. Even when all travel was banned football clubs were still able to play in Europe and return without quarantining. I know there were a few issues with European sides coming to the UK and games having to be rearranged as a result of that but I can't recall any issues with our domestic sides playing in Europe or previous International breaks.

Pigeon_Killer · 24 Aug 2021 at 20:06

A few people on Twitter seem to be suggesting FIFA have now threatened Premier League clubs with sanctions and have told them their players could only opt out during the pandemic. By that, I assume FIFA are implying they now believe the pandemic is over.

It's about time we had a proper domestic vs international scrap. Most of the football governing bodies seem to think football's above COVID and they can force players do what they want, the clubs hold the power and I hope they use it.

Robbo · 25 Aug 2021 at 09:14

Not to mention international breaks are pointless and terrible.

Converge · 25 Aug 2021 at 10:07

Robbo said:
Not to mention international breaks are pointless and terrible.

Oh god, it’s nearly that time of the season already? I forget how quickly it comes round. Meh.

fez · 25 Aug 2021 at 12:25

ignore

robfosters · 25 Aug 2021 at 12:30

fez said:
So RM have made a £137m bid for Mbappe. Utter utter madness. Hes out of contract next summer.

What does this have to do with Covid?

fez · 25 Aug 2021 at 12:37

robfosters said:
What does this have to do with Covid?

Absolutely nothing. Completely the wrong thread.

Reuben klang · 26 Aug 2021 at 08:24

Pigeon_Killer said:
A few people on Twitter seem to be suggesting FIFA have now threatened Premier League clubs with sanctions and have told them their players could only opt out during the pandemic. By that, I assume FIFA are implying they now believe the pandemic is over.

It's about time we had a proper domestic vs international scrap. Most of the football governing bodies seem to think football's above COVID and they can force players do what they want, the clubs hold the power and I hope they use it.

Would love it if the FA/leagues in Europe just said not happening and the govs back them.

Robbo said:
Not to mention international breaks are pointless and terrible.

They’re annoying and just money spinners. The SA qualification is MILES behind it may not get finished if they don’t get the 8 games done this year. Pretty mental how bad they’ve done this with forcing the CA in the summer.