Each new email that appears there sends a cold sweat down the backs of the leaders of the Professional Football League (LFP). The box, dedicated to information related to Covid-19, receives alerts from doctors from Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 clubs. And with them, new positive cases that jeopardize the holding of meetings. This Tuesday, it was the four contaminated OM - Amavi, Mandanda, Lopez and Rongier - who led to the postponement of the launch match of the first day scheduled against Saint-Etienne on Friday evening.
The reason for this decision? It appears on the tenth page of the protocol developed by the League, validated by the Ministry of Sports and awaiting the official green light from the interministerial crisis unit (CIC). The document is clear: “If the team has more than three players or supervisors isolated over 8 rolling days, the virus is circulating in the club. "
This status requires the teams, required to have PCR tests carried out in laboratories validated by the Regional Health Agencies (ARS) between 72 and 48 hours before each match, to refer to the “Covid commission”, made up of four doctors from around the world. football and two infectious diseases. These then send their report to the competitions commission which then decides to postpone the match.
Claude Puel denounces a "draconian" protocol
Meanwhile, the rest of the players at the club where the virus is circulating must be content with training in small groups. Positive cases are required to be isolated from the rest of the group for 14 days from the onset of symptoms. And if you add the fitness timeframe to that, you get players out for almost a month.
“More than three cases, that's a significant figure,” explains one of the members of this commission to the Parisian. If you take a group of thirty players and staff, it means that at least more than 12% of the workforce is contaminated. And beyond the positives, you may have people who are not yet responding to tests but are already infected. "
“There are leagues that only detect the symptomatic and don't test the rest. We could very well have thought that all the negative players of Marseille could be available and quarantine those who tested positive, ”was annoyed Tuesday on France Info Claude Puel, the coach of the Greens who criticize a“ draconian ”protocol ".
The fear of a messed up calendar
French rules are indeed stricter than those in force elsewhere in Europe. In early August, UEFA decided that all matches of the season should be played as long as each team could field at least 13 players, including a goalkeeper. And in the extreme case that the club could not even present a sufficient number of healthy players, it would have lost the game. Principles put in place to complete the continental competitions on time within a 2020-2021 financial year which promises to be very busy with the Euro at the end.
In Ligue 1, several leaders are already worried about piling up postponements and complicating the schedule. And each piece of information is closely scrutinized, such as that from Nîmes, which announced on Tuesday two new suspicions of Covid-19 in its group.
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“We sent the car to the garage for three months. There, we are told that it is broken down from the first kilometers of our journey, compares Bernard Caïazzo, president of Saint-Etienne and of the union of elite clubs, Premier League, who asked for an interview with Matignon on the subject. These permanent postponements will pose organizational and financial problems, but also sporting equity. “This Friday, Bordeaux will face Nantes for a recovery already cut off from three of its games by the game of postponements. If two of them, PSG-Metz and Montpellier-OL, are linked to the beautiful summer of French clubs in the Champions League, that of OM-Saint-Etienne embodies its current torments. And future.