Can clubs ban their players from leaving with their national teams for fear of the coronavirus?

The international break returns for the second time this season. Tonight, international friendlies will be given everywhere with the great logistics that this requires in the times that are due to the coronavirus at the level of displacement of people, creation of new bubbles and preparation of protocols to avoid contagion.

Thus, dozens and dozens of players from different clubs will break into different teams the bunkers to which they are subjected in their teams to play with their team on this FIFA date. Despite the very strict protocols in place in the federations, the clubs fear a possible infection of the players but, legally, they have little to do.

In its annex number 1, in article 1.1, The Regulations on the status and transfer of FIFA players for this 2020 include the obligation of clubs to “release their registered players in favor of the representative teams of the country for which they have the right to play due to their nationality, if the association summons the player “ also prohibiting in this norm any agreement between player and club to avoid the call.

For this release to be mandatory, the matches have to appear on the international calendar established by FIFA. The matches that enter are those that are played in these international periods established by the international federation itself in addition to the World Cup, the Confederations Cup and “the championships of representative 'A' teams (senior teams) of the confederations”. That is, Eurocup, America's Cup, Gold Cup, etc.

In point 6, the regulation explains that outside this period the release is not mandatory and neither, in the event that there is more than one final competition in which the senior team plays with one exception, that one of those competitions is the Cup Confederations, organized by FIFA itself.

Players have to abide by the rules once released and travel no later than the morning of the Monday that the break begins and leave on the morning of the Wednesday that ends. If they do not return in the stipulated hours, FIFA contemplates sanctions such as shorter calls or prohibiting that federation from putting the player on its list.

In the case of women's football, exactly the same happens with respect to the permission that the clubs can grant to the players, although it changes regarding calendars and possible windows to go with your selection.

A protocol so that everything is safe

Given the obligation to free their players to travel with their national teams and that this international football continues, FIFA wants to have everything under control and drew up a 140-page protocol detailing step-by-step everything necessary to carry out these matches safely.

Everything, based on medical criteria, where it is specified how to prepare a match day, how to provide the dates for the calendar, how to perform the tests on the players, what are the risk situations, the use of masks, how to act in case that the positive arose in a foreign country and even the creation of a 'Covid manager' within FIFA teams and the federations themselves to keep the virus at bay.