The arbitrary elimination of Castres Olympique worries them.
Without warning, the EPCR had decided to apply the principle of maximum precaution and deprive the Tarn of their trip to Leicester on Sunday for their quarter-final of the Challenge Cup.
The reason ?
Four cases of Covid-19 (three players and one staff member) at the start of the week.
The CO had immediately quarantined them.
But the rules that prevail for the Top 14 are apparently not the same in the European Cup.
No specific health protocol regulates the European meetings which resumed last weekend
Apparently because, in fact, this one is non-existent.
No specific health protocol frames the European meetings which resumed last weekend.
A regulatory vagueness that worries the four French clubs competing for the semi-finals.
Racing (which will host the Saracens in the Champions Cup) and Toulon (which will host Leicester in the Challenge Cup), but especially the Stade Toulousain and the UBB.
The first city must indeed go to Exeter and the second to Bristol.
With the threat of being deprived without notice of the trip by the organizer of the competitions who does not want to take any risk and imposes the package, a postponement not being possible in an already overloaded schedule.
A few days before these Franco-English games, France Bleu Occitanie reveals that the leaders of these four Top 14 clubs have requested clarity from the EPCR.
Which, at the end of a meeting held on Monday, would have acceded to this request and should provide a common health protocol for the English and French.
This will prevent the Bordelais and Toulousains from complying with the protocol in force across the Channel.
An official document should as of this Tuesday establish clear rules
An official document should very quickly (from this Tuesday?) Establish clear rules, in particular until how many days before the matches should it be considered that positive results in the covid tests entail a forfeit.
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Stade Toulousain, the fear of elimination by package