In “Ufa” they commented on the rumors that appeared a few days ago that a coronavirus infection was detected in the club. The general director of the Bashkortostans, Shamil Gazizov, said that, indeed, there are suspicions of infection of one of the players.

“The test results of one of the team members after the next examination were doubtful regarding infection with a new coronavirus infection. In this regard, all necessary preventive measures were taken in strict accordance with existing standards. Recommendations on quarantine measures and the conduct of the match were received from the regional specialized agency, ”Gazizova said in a statement.

According to the general director of Ufa, then additional tests were carried out, the results of which "may indicate a single case of a possible infection." At the same time, Gazizov noted that all other employees and team members are not infected.

“The team is preparing for the next match in the normal mode, and the medical headquarters, in close cooperation with the sanitary doctors, is dynamically monitoring the contact group,” the director general concluded.

On the final day of the 23rd round, one of the most discussed topics was the postponement of the meeting between Krasnodar and Dynamo, so the situation in Ufa faded into the background. Nevertheless, a day before the match with Tambov, rumors appeared in the media that the forward of the team Andres Vombergar passed a positive test for COVID-19. At first, they did not comment on this information, but on the evening of June 20, the chairman of the board of trustees of the club, Rostislav Murzagulov, in a rather harsh form, said that there were no patients in the team.

However, suspicions intensified after Wombergar did not get into the application of Ufa for the game. At the same time, the player’s injury was also not announced. However, the Russian Premier League (RPL) did not react to suspicions from journalists and authorized the match.

Gazizov’s statement expectedly caused a huge response in the Russian football community. The club knew about an ambiguous test for coronavirus in one of the athletes, which is confirmed by the words of the general director, but did not advertise the information. Indeed, in this case, the team had a risk to share the fate of “Rostov” and be isolated, and the youth team would have to be put up for the match with “Tambov”. Wards of Vadim Evseev, although they had a substantial margin of points so as not to become outsiders, they hardly wanted to complicate their position.

“What do the leadership of Bashkortostan and the federal authorities think about this? Or are laws not written to the club from Ufa? ” - wrote a famous commentator Dmitry Guberniev in the Telegram channel.

Judging by the statement of Gazizov, at the time of the match there was no confirmed information that one of the players in Ufa was infected. Thus, the team did not technically violate the regulations and had the right to let other players out on the field. However, in this case, the ethical question arises, since the club knew about the possible infection, but decided not to advertise this information and hold the match, thus jeopardizing the health of other participants in the tournament - representatives of Tambov, the refereeing team and maintenance staff. Indeed, a potentially infected athlete was in contact with other team members. Of course, all of them also passed the tests and got negative results, however, studies do not give a 100% guarantee of the absence of infection.

On the eve of the media new information on the case. According to the "Rating of bookmakers", as part of "Ufa" a positive test for COVID-19 passed not only Vombergar, but also midfielder Igor Bezdenezhnykh. At the same time, the RFU and RPL allegedly were aware of this state of affairs, but did not prevent the athletes from entering the field. At the moment, there has been no rebuttal from organizations.

If in Ufa there really are cases of infection and the football authorities knew about them, but did not prevent the game from playing with Tambov, then in Russian football one of the biggest scandals in recent years may flare up. The RPL has already received a solid portion of criticism for the decision to allow a meeting between professionals from Sochi and students of the Rostov Academy. That match was called by many one of the most shameful pages in the history of the country's championship. But now the level of dissatisfaction can be much higher.

If the story around Ufa finds confirmation, this will mean that the manual does not have double, but triple standards. “Rostov”, “Dynamo” and “Ufa” found themselves in similar situations, but in all three cases the events developed according to completely different scenarios: one of the teams literally gave the opponent the most important three points, which may well become decisive in the fight for a ticket to the European Cups, the other managed to postpone the match, while the third allegedly neglected the safety of the meeting participants and entered the field.

This may indicate a lack of consistency in the decisions of the main persons of the RFU and RPL and the lack of consistency in their actions. In the case of Rostov and Dynamo, the possibility of partial quarantine of teams, which would allow them to take part in matches, albeit with a truncated, but the main team, was not even discussed. It is foolish to assume that Valery Karpin would prefer to put graduates of the academy on the field, rather than professionals, albeit without a number of leaders. In this case, the chances of a positive result in the confrontation with Sochi would be much greater.

The same applies to Dynamo, which lost only three players. Of course, the absence of Charles Cabore, Sebastian Szymanski and Clinton N'Zhi ​​would have left an imprint on the performance of blue and white, but it would hardly have inevitably led to defeat. Yes, in the context of transferring the game, we can safely say that it is better to have a full clip, but after all, Krasnodar might not have behaved so nobly. In this case, Muscovites could follow the example of Rostovites and suffer a humiliating defeat.