The Premier League is in quite a predicament, one that in December of 2021 the EPL has seen before but one that many probably thought we were past.
According to various reports, the Premier League has been hit with a record 103 new cases of COVID among club players and staff over the past seven days up to and including December 26.
A record 103 Premier League players and staff tested positive for Covid in the seven days up to and including 26 December, new figures show.
The previous weekly league record was 90 cases, announced a week ago.
A total of 15,186 tests were carried out between 20 and 26 December, as the Premier League has reintroduced daily testing of players and staff.
Fifteen English top-flight games have been called off so far during December because of coronavirus cases.
A Premier League statement said: “The Premier League’s Covid-19 emergency measures include protocols such as wearing face coverings while indoors, observing social distancing, limiting treatment time, as well as the increased testing.
“The league is continuing to work with clubs to keep people safe by helping mitigate the risks of Covid-19 within their squads. We are also liaising closely with the government, local authorities and supporter groups, while being responsive to any future changes to national or local guidance.”
BBC
A number of matches have already been postponed due to the omicron variant making its way across the globe, however, it doesn’t seem like the EPL nor the EFL are looking to implement a pause while clubs get a handle on the growing cases. Last week all 20 EPL clubs met to discuss how the continuing pandemic has affected the League yet no vote was implemented when it came to shutting down. Instead, clubs were notified that if they have 13 healthy players plus one goalkeeper they should fulfill their games.
Not that any of this is surprising.
Clubs and the League would rather make themselves out to be hypocrites than take this whole pandemic seriously, especially at this point. The World is almost two years into this thing and we never did what was needed to be done to eradicate all of this in the beginning. Meanwhile, doing what’s needed to be done now is surely not going to happen amongst billionaire owners and billionaire investors who would still rather line their own pockets with ticket sales and the revenue streams that flow in when it comes to live matches.
So yeah, we’ll continue to see postponements, we’ll continue to see full stadiums, and we’ll continue to deal with all of this at the very least until the end of the season. As far as next year goes, who knows? You can probably bet though that new measures will be implemented to keep the number of postponements from happening rather than again taking a more firm approach to eradication. This could very well include not testing asymptomatic players and staff or perhaps allowing players to play who are displaying very minor symptoms.