It's a 33-page working document that Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 clubs have been eagerly awaiting. Entitled "protocol for the organization of matches", it will allow the 40 clubs concerned to adapt their daily lives to the Covid-19 pandemic and will be presented to the members of the office of the Professional Football League (LFP) on Monday.
The text, which Le Parisien has obtained, details in particular the medical protocol imagined for the coming season. A part not yet validated by the interministerial crisis unit (CIC), which must pronounce on the subject at the end of the week, but which should fuel the debates among the leaders of French football.
Compulsory tests three or four days before the matches
Professional footballers in Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 are not done with the tests. The protocol requires clubs to “implement a rigorous testing program to increase the safety and confidence of all involved in the match”.
Concretely, the players, the technical staff and the stewards will have to undergo a PCR test, that is to say a nasal sample, between 96 and 72 hours before the meeting "in a laboratory validated by the regional health agency ".
The time allowed between the kick-off of the match and the test is longer than during the Coupe de France and Coupe de la Ligue finals. The protocol then imposed a screening 48 hours before the matches. It is up to the clubs to ensure that the results can arrive on time, under penalty of penalties. Only to be able to dry these repeated tests, the players or members of the staff already contaminated by Covid-19 in the past and whose immunity will be proven by two serological tests.
In addition, each club medical officer will also have to perform a clinical examination on the day of the meeting to screen for possible symptoms of Covid-19 in the players and staff. They will also have to fill out a questionnaire on D-day “demonstrating the absence of symptoms”.
Matches likely to be postponed ... or to be given lost
After the waltz of friendly matches postponed by positive cases for the new coronavirus, those of official meetings? The text opens the door to this possibility, but frames it. First scenario: if one of the clubs is unable to provide the document certifying the team's surveillance on the day of the match, in particular the results of the tests carried out during the week.
The Covid commission, set up by the French Football Federation, will then take up the subject and examine the reasons for the absence of this document. It will give its opinion to the LFP competitions commission which will decide either to postpone the match, or to "give the lost match to the team which has not given the document on the day of the match to the delegate".
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Another possibility: if the virus is considered "circulating" in a club. In its protocol, the League estimates that "if the team has more than three players or supervisors isolated over eight rolling days, the virus is circulating in the club". Clearly, RC Strasbourg or FC Nantes would have recently been classified in this category.
In this case, the club's medical manager must immediately notify the League and send the documents detailing the isolation measures put in place to the Covid commission. This will give an opinion to the competitions commission which may then postpone the match or not.
Players to isolate and training to adapt
If players or staff members test positive for Covid-19, the protocol requires them to be isolated for 14 days. Any professional group member who develops symptoms should also be placed in precautionary isolation while awaiting the result of their test.
The protocol also provides for supervising the training sessions of clubs where the virus is considered to be circulating. Players could continue to repeat their ranges provided they are in groups of less than ten people.
A new test must be carried out three or four days after the declaration of the last case, making it possible to detect any new positive cases to be isolated. Negative players will still have to undergo a new test on D + 7 to be able to resume collective training.
It remains to be seen whether the CIC will fully validate the medical protocol and what decisions will be taken locally by the regional health agencies. At the end of July, the entire professional group of Guingamp (Ligue 2) was placed in solitary confinement on leaving a training course where he had resided in the same hotel. In private, some club leaders are also annoyed with the measures taken by the ARS. On Monday, the president of FC Nantes Waldemar Kita pleaded in L'Equipe for a relaxation of the medical protocol.
