London (AFP)
The last two group days of the European Rugby Cup and the Challenge Cup, scheduled for January, have been canceled and competition will resume with playoff matches, the executive director of the English Premier League announced on Thursday.
These matches scheduled for the weekends of January 15 and 22 had already been postponed Monday, following the announcement by the French authorities that it was too dangerous for the teams of France to play against residents of the country, the Kingdom. -UI and Ireland, where the English variant of Covid-19 is spreading at high speed.
As explained by the head of Premiership Rugby, Darren Childs, the European body (European Professional Club Rugby), which organizes the European Cups, has decided since Monday to no longer search for dates for the matches of the last two days, the teams' agenda is already very disrupted and the health context unpredictable.
The most likely option is for everything to start again, on a date as yet unknown, with the round of 16 with, for each event, the 16 best clubs at the start of the group stage.
There are no free dates at the end of the season either because the British and Irish Lions are supposed to go on tour in South Africa, also indicated Darren Childs, for whom it would be "very damaging for the European tournaments to make. play matches in the absence of the Lions ".
In the European Cup, Stade Toulouse had to face defending champion Exeter in England, before hosting the Irish province of Ulster.
Same story for Clermont (Munster, Bristol), Lyon (Glasgow Warriors, Gloucester) or Racing 92 (Harlequins, Connacht) ...
These matches will therefore not take place.
"The French government wishes as a priority to fight against all the risks of introduction" of more contagious variants of Covid-19 and their "circulation on the national territory", explained the Ministry of Sports at the beginning of the week.
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