New protocol on Covid in Italy

The Government of Italy approved this Wednesday a new sports protocol that establishes clearer guidelines on when a soccer match should be postponed for reasons related to the Covid.

Sports, health and government bodies have agreed that matches should be played unless 35% or more of the players in a squad have tested positive for the virus.

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Players who test positive will be required to self-isolate, while their close contacts will not have to, but will be required to undergo continuous testing for five days, wear an FFP2 mask off the pitch and register a negative result four hours before a match.

Italy has faced a surge in COVID-19 infections in recent weeks, peaking at more than 228,000 daily cases on January 18.

The capacity of the stadiums was reduced to a maximum of 5,000 people in the last two days of Serie A in January, in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus. New measures regarding the postponement of matches are expected to prevent further confusion, after a chaotic start to the year.

On January 7, four Serie A matches were suspended, after only one team was presented to each of them, due to conflicting instructions from the sports and health authorities. The league body stuck to the original protocol, refusing to postpone games where teams had at least 13 available players, including a goalkeeper.

However, four teams – Bologna, Torino, Salernitana and Udinese – received travel bans from their local health authorities due to Covid outbreaks.

For this reason, their respective rivals – Inter, Atalanta, Venezia and Fiorentina – showed up at the stadium, lined up a team and waited until half-time for the game to be officially suspended.