Serie A clubs have set June 14 as the last possible date to resume games if the season is to be finished, as they battle the Government to get training started earlier than May 18.
Italy Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced in a press conference on Sunday evening that the country would move into Phase Two of the coronavirus pandemic response from May 4.
However, while individual sports like swimming and tennis will be allowed to resume training from that date, team sports have to wait until May 18.
The majority of Serie A clubs – except for Brescia – are eager to get going before then and see it as nonsensical, because the rules state from May 4 that players could for example go running in a local park keeping a two-metre distance, but not do the exact same thing inside a training ground.
To make matters even more confusing, just hours after PM Conte’s statement, Minister for Sport Vincenzo Spadafora contradicted it, insisting the May 18 date for training was not set in stone.
Spadafora expanded on that yesterday by suggesting there’s no guarantee the Serie A season will resume at all.
“We’ve been working to resume training from May 18, but that doesn’t mean the leagues will start up again.”
Now the Lega Serie A has hit back and sources told news agency ANSA that if the games do not resume by June 14, then the season will be called off.
As it takes three to four weeks of training to be ready again after such a long lay-off, May 18 is therefore the latest date to start training.
The Lega Serie A could even threaten to sue the Government for financial damages if the lockdown orders force their season to end early and are furious that the latest decree was not what they were expecting or lead to believe was coming.
The clubs are fighting to be given the opportunity to train in sports centres while keeping social distancing measures, just as those who take part in individual sports can, from May 4.
They argue that the Serie A clubs with the facilities to perform daily swab and blood tests and keep their players in a training retreat isolated from possible contamination, should have a very low risk of infection from COVID-19.
The Government’s scientific committee considered the medical protocol put forward by the FIGC to be “insufficient” and it will have to be modified, the details of which will be discussed over the next few days.
There is another element to be considered, as once the blood tests are performed, we could see that far more have developed antibodies than previously expected and would therefore be immune.
This is a matter of contention, as the World Health Organisation warned this week that antibodies do not necessarily mean immunity – or rather, it is far too early to know for sure how long that immunity lasts, because this virus is so new.
