Will the Covid protocol nip the new Ligue 1 season in the bud?

Jaume Roures has seen others - many, indeed, it is said. But the Mediapro boss certainly did not expect that two years ago, when he pledged to pay more than three billion euros to the LFP for the right to broadcast the 2020 Ligue 1 matches. to 2024. In his defense, absolutely no one could foresee the global mess caused by the coronavirus pandemic. On the scale that interests us, just like this good Jaume, it is the resumption of Ligue 1, from this weekend, which promises to be a huge boxon.

𝗟𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗱'𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗱'𝗔𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗲́ 𝗩𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗮𝘀-𝗕𝗼𝗮𝘀 💙 pic.twitter.com/vtmY2oOGkt

Already two games postponed this weekend?

The number of positive Covid-19 cases has seriously increased among the elite workforce in recent weeks (more than 40 according to an AFP count). Many friendly matches had to be canceled and on Tuesday we learned of the postponement of OM-Saint-Etienne, which Mediapro had chosen as a call-off match for the big launch of its Téléfoot channel on Friday. Four people - players or members of the staff - were indeed infected on the Marseille side, reaching the limit from which the very recent Covid Commission of the LFP considers that the virus is "circulating" in a club. And therefore that we must postpone the match of the team in question.

For now, only what was to be the opening match of Day 1 is officially postponed. But it certainly shouldn't be the last. Tuesday, the Stéphanois coach Claude Puel said on France Info "very pessimistic about the holding of the championship". “There will be no dates to systematically postpone the matches and very quickly, we find ourselves in the wall,” he fears. Losc coach Christophe Galtier said nothing else: “We talk a lot about postponements internally. It's a bad signal that we send from the first day. We were one of the few leagues to stop the championship and when we restart, there are already games postponed. The calendar is very compact and that will have an impact on the form of the workforce ”.

Nothing is opposed to the resumption of the @ Ligue1UberEats this Friday (7pm) with the Bordeaux-Nantes match at @MatmutAtl! The last PCR tests carried out 48 hours before the match were all negative for @girondins and @FCNantes! #Bordeaux #Girondins #FCGB #FCN #Nantes

"It will be a puzzle to reset the matches in the calendar"

Contacted by 20 Minutes , Olivier Guégan, the coach of Valenciennes (Ligue 2), joined his elite counterparts: “I don't think that postponing the matches is the best solution, because that can distort the situation. Not everyone will play the same matches at the same time, he notes. It's going to be artistic vagueness and a big headache to stop the matches in an already very tight schedule. For example, 15 matches are already scheduled for December-January. If the epidemic starts again strong, it could be really complicated. "

The three technicians consider the protocol provided for by the League too drastic. “There is a real reflection to know if these are the right recommendations, estimates Puel. One could very well have thought that all negative Marseille players could be available and quarantine those who tested positive. "

So, will the League protocol get the better of the “next season” in Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 before they even start? There are nevertheless inevitable health prevention requirements to be observed. “From the moment we are four players, infectious disease specialists believe that we are on a virus that we have trouble keeping properly. It also means that we have a good chance of being in six, eight or ten cases in a few days. This is the problem with the circulating virus. The committee must prohibit the match from taking place, ”defended Emmanuel Orhant, medical director of the FFF and member of the Covid Commission, on Wednesday, to RMC Sport.

Resurgence of Covid-19 cases, cancellation of friendlies ... Are you worried about the resumption of Ligue 1? https://t.co/g6GwP6PHxA

The chairman of the Covid commission "has no qualms"

In the Team , doctor Jean-François Le Chapellier, president of the famous commission also defends his fat by recalling that the protocol was first devised to protect the health of players: "We do not have to have moods. I have read things about asymptomatic players, but what we know in medicine is that they can have heart pathologies ”. A useful precision when we look at the side of the top 14, where the Stade Français for example announced that several of its players suffered from lung lesions preventing them from resuming training. Above all, the recovery protocol has been developed in collaboration with club doctors, even if some find it too demanding.

“It's a real gas plant, blows a head of the medical sector of a big L1 club. It is not impossible to set up but it is a lot of constraints. There are the tests 48 hours before and especially this questionnaire to be filled out for the players and the staff on the day of the match. It's about ten questions: do you have a fever, have you been in contact with a case in recent days… The problem, for example, is that a player can very well have a fever during the day of the match because he has a small gastro or a sore throat… How do we do in this case? And above all it's a bit bogus because it's done by the club doctor or internally, everyone can say what they want ”.

Towards a relaxation of the protocol without crossing the red line of the 4 positive cases

Thus, the day before the match, once the results of the PCR tests are known, and the questionnaires have been completed, the club's Covid referent establishes a certificate "in good faith" to say that nothing is against the holding of the match. According to our information, several points of friction have been raised at the federal office, and the health protocol could be further relaxed in the coming days. But the LFP medical commission will not give up on its red line: with four cases of Covid-19 in the team, we stop. “For me, it's a standard that holds up, concedes Olivier Guégan. Let us imagine that it is four holders who are concerned, it is not nothing. Rules had to be put in place. We may discuss, disagree, we have to adapt ”.

Last screening before the official resumption 🔥 pic.twitter.com/lKskkg8eSJ

Emmanuel Orhant adds that it's up to the players to take charge: “A training session is three hours in a day. A player is therefore 9 pm next to manage his life. Everyone has to understand that everyone who revolves around the players must be faultless. Social distancing, the wearing of a mask should allow the curve to evolve downwards. Let us not forget that if the curve evolves upwards, whole cities will be confined, and we will no longer talk about three or four cases but of several weeks without a match. "

"The people who revolve around the players must be irreproachable"

However, several L1 players would like the health instructions for the French championship to be closer to those issued by UEFA, which are much more lax. On paper, it suffices that 13 players remain negative to Covid-19 for the match to be disputed, the objective being to play at all costs, even by lining up the reserve team. A voluntarism that looks like a big string of communications.

Ligue 1: New case of Covid-19 in Montpellier with the positive test of Andy Delort https://t.co/BLMz1aSIGo via @ 20minutesmont pic.twitter.com/2VH5HRU90g

First, because the European institution must comply with the health standards of the countries which host the meetings, then, because it has already broken its own rules: last week, the Kosovar team of Drita, who had to face the Irish Linfield in the preliminary round of the Champions League in Nyon, Switzerland, lost the match on the green carpet… because of two positive cases. A mishap that hangs in the face of another Kosovo club, FC Prishtina, whose match was initially postponed Wednesday evening by UEFA after the discovery of eight positive cases.

UEFA decides we have lost the match 3: 0!
This decision is odd and fast from an organization like UEFA without asking for any further explanation or statement from our club.
Main reason for this decision was that the match couldnt be postponed for more than three days (Aug 14) 1/2

The UEFA protocol not really exemplary

This is one more than Montpellier, where Andy Delort joined the cohort of players who tested positive since March (Sambia, Oyongo, Mollet, Tamas, Vargas). The Héraultais can also thank the Lyonnais for having pushed until the semi-finals of the Champions League. Otherwise it would have made a second match postponed from the first day, while waiting to know what will happen to Nîmes-Brest. According to the latest news, there were already four positive screenings in the Gard workforce.

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Coronavirus in Ligue 1: "The players are contaminated elsewhere than in the stadiums", estimates Antoine Flahault

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