The conflict between the Rostov football club and the head of the Russian Premier League, Sergei Pryadkin, continued.

This time, the cause of the team's dissatisfaction was the situation around the match of the eighth round with Rotor, which included an outbreak of coronavirus.

The epidemic within the team became known a week ago, but the meeting was canceled only the day before.

At the same time, the official decision was voiced by the Volgograd residents themselves.

The match between Rostov and Rotor was on the verge of collapse even at the moment when the first rumors about patients with coronavirus in the visiting team leaked to the media.

On September 12, information appeared about seven infected, a day later three more players were added to the list, and then another.

In this regard, the leadership of the RPL decided to cancel the game of the seventh round with Krasnodar and award the Volgograd team a technical defeat.

In addition, already on September 22, Krasnodar will play the first match of the play-off round of the Champions League qualification.

In case of success in the confrontation with the Greek PAOK "bulls" for the first time in their history will play in the group stage of the tournament and earn the most important points for the country in the UEFA coefficient table.

It was clearly not worth risking the prospects of the domestic club in the international championship.

In this regard, it seemed quite logical to cancel the game of the next round with Rostov.

First, according to generally accepted rules, in case of coronavirus disease, the period of quarantine is 14 days.

Consequently, Rotor representatives who passed a positive test for COVID-19 are guaranteed not to be able to take part in the match with the yellow-blue.

In the best case, they will be able to enter the field in a meeting with Rubin Kazan on September 27.

Secondly, Valery Karpin's wards also represent Russia in European competitions, albeit in the less prestigious Europa League.

Nevertheless, official information about the cancellation of the match was not published for a long time, which made Rostov contact Pryadkin directly.

Club representatives drew up an official letter, in which they asked a number of specific questions.

In particular, the yellow-blues asked if the functionary was ready to be held responsible for the possible infection of football players, and suspected the league leadership of applying double standards.

"Rostov" sent an appeal to the President of the RPL Sergei Pryadkinhttps: //t.co/SfLdra98fvpic.twitter.com/ld2fggKLs5

- Football Club Rostov (@rostovfc) September 16, 2020

Another important question was whether the head of the league believed that the 11 infected footballers did not contact their teammates during the training process.

After all, for a long time this was the stumbling block in the issue of canceling the meeting between "Rotor" and "Krasnodar" - Rospotrebnadzor was supposed to conduct an investigation and identify the so-called contact group, but the data was never received.

As a result, the cancellation of the match "Rostov" - "Rotor" became known only a day before its start.

Moreover, the official information was published by the Rotor press service, not the RPL.

The club said that the players will be in self-isolation in the near future. 

“Our priority is the health of our footballers and rival players, so the club's management decided, in accordance with the recommendations of Rospotrebnadzor, not to fly to the away meeting with Rostov, which is to take place on September 19 at the Rostov Arena.

All club employees continue to regularly take tests for coronavirus infection.

The condition of the infected is stable, the disease is mild, and the players are at home.

We apologize to our fans and hope for their understanding, ”Rotor said in a statement.

After that, the corresponding confirmation appeared on the website of the Russian Premier League, and then Pryadkin himself commented on the cancellation of the meeting.

The head of the RPL thanked the Volgograd residents for their responsible attitude and wished the athletes recovery.

“All week we were in close contact with Rotor.

We've set a deadline for Friday morning.

Up to this point, the club had to provide a solution to the regional Rospotrebnadzor on the epidemiological situation.

Rotor representatives took tests daily, and, unfortunately, another case of coronavirus was detected yesterday.

Rotor himself realized the complexity of the situation and decided not to take part in the match, which he promptly notified the league about, "RIA Novosti quotes Pryadkin.

This time, the clubs and the league managed to get out of the difficult situation and find a solution to the problem, which could well turn into the removal of the Russian team from performances in the Europa League qualification.

Nevertheless, it became finally clear that there is a serious conflict within the championship.

The relationship between Rostov and Pryadkin soured in the summer.

The reason was the incident around the match of the 23rd round of the Russian championship of the 2019/20 season between Sochi and Rostov.

Karpin's wards were the first to report an outbreak of coronavirus within the team and suffered more seriously than others.

For comparison, Dynamo managed to agree to postpone the confrontation with Krasnodar, and Ufa even played with Tambov, despite suspicions of COVID-19 among the players.

At the same time, the yellow-blue had to release the graduates of the academy aged 16 to 19 years.

As a result, a defeat with a score of 1:10, which became one of the largest in the history of Russian championships.

It was at this moment that the conflict arose between Rostov and the RPL, which Karpin helped to flare up.

After a draw with Orenburg in the 28th round, he cited the famous quote from the ex-coach of the Russian national team Anatoly Byshovets about the absence of "the limit of human abomination", and also called the league "Rospotrebnadzor-championship".

Pryadkin was outraged by such a statement and demanded to take it apart at the next meeting of the ethics committee.

View this post on Instagram

Posted by Valeri Karpin (@vgkarpin) Jul 14, 2020 3:13 PDT

In response, Karpin laughed at Pryadkin's request: “Wow!

It turns out that we have an RPL president who cares about the image of the Russian Premier League. "

The Ethics Committee considered such statements by a specialist inappropriate and fined him 100 thousand rubles.

At the same time, the mentor himself did not appear at the meeting, and his interests were represented by a lawyer.

After that, it could seem that the conflict has subsided.

At the beginning of the season, the parties did not exchange mutual reproaches, but the temporary lull was interrupted by the press service of Rostovites.

According to RB-Sport, the league organized a vote among the clubs, which was to determine the best footballer, coach and team of the last season, as well as laureates in the nominations "Hope" (the best young player under the age of 21) and "For contribution to the development football ".

In the last of them, "Rostov" voted for Pryadkin, which many social media users perceived as cruel irony.

It is worth recognizing that the tension in relations between Rostov and Pryadkin not only exists, but also causes serious damage to the image of the Russian Premier League.

It is not surprising that many were quick to criticize the head of the RPL for the lack of reaction to the situation around the match with Rotor.

It is all the more remarkable that neither side is making attempts to extinguish the conflict.

Although this would benefit both the RPL and Rostov.

The league would cease to suffer image losses due to civil strife with one of the strongest clubs in the country, and the yellow-blue would stop wasting time and energy on picks.