Governing Bodies
LA LIGA RELEASES FOUR-PHASED PROTOCOL FOR LEAGUE RESUMPTION
The Spanish football league body, La Liga has released a four-plan step that will lead to the resumption of the league next month. This is contained in a 24-page special report on training ground protocol.
A mass testing of clubs in the top two divisions has commenced. This week, Lionel Messi was spotted in a mask.
Also,disinfected footballs, three players per dressing room and the prospect of squads living in Big Brother-style houses are just some of the proposals in place in order for the La Liga season to restart.
The task of testing clubs in the country’s top two divisions began this week as part of LaLiga’s operation to restart the season in the middle of June.
The report also informs clubs of their obligation to test players for COVID-19 before they begin training.
The four-phased protocol runs thus:
Phase One: Testing
Every one of the players registered with the 20 top-flight clubs in Spain, plus all technical staff and essential workers have had to be tested for COVID-19 and that even includes Real Valladolid president Ronaldo Nazario.
The former Barcelona and Real Madrid forward wants to be close to his players as they come back in a bid to save themselves from relegation and that means he will have to pass through the three tests the players are to be subjected to before the season can restart.
One name missing from the Barcelona list of individuals to be tested was Ousmane Dembele. He is not registered with LaLiga – that’s how Barcelona were allowed special dispensation to sign Martin Braithwaite outside of the window – and so until his official period of recovery from injury is reached in July he will not be registered and tested and cannot go to the club’s training ground as a consequence.
Phase Two: Solitary training
LaLiga have already said they are anticipating at least 30 cases of players testing positive for coronavirus. But they are determined that this will not deter them from aiming to restart the season in June.
Players who test positive will be sent into quarantine and tested before they can return.
If players test positive when squads are training together then it will be more of a problem but at this stage before players have even started solitary training there will be no panic.
‘We should not dramatise [players testing positive]. We should act as in any other industry that has returned to work,’ said Spain’s secretary for Sport, Irene Lozano.
Despite tests being made available some players have expressed grave concerns.
‘I will not play again if there is a minimum risk of spreading the virus to my family, said Eibar’s Pape Diop and his team-mates and coaches put together a joint statement saying: ‘We are afraid to start an activity in which we will not be able to meet the first recommendation of all the experts which is physical distancing.’
LaLiga president Tebas has already told players: ‘There is more risk going to the chemist than there is going to training,’ and in the first phase players will be able to social distance because they will be training alone.
Phase Three: Small group training
To a certain extent social distancing will carry on into the third phase because squads will be split up into three groups of eight. There will be no contact between groups.
And clubs that have the facilities have been told to use three different dressing rooms for their groups of eight meaning that there are never more than three players in any one dressing room at the same time.
Dressing rooms will be disinfected after every session before the next group of eight players come in. Maintaining the training grounds are ventilated is emphasised and where possible doors should be left open to limit the number of times door handles have to be touched.
LaLiga has sent a 24-page protocol to the 20 clubs. It is extremely detailed right down to recommending hand washing every hour and instructing clubs to put soap dispensers throughout their facilities.
So-called non-essential staff, who don’t have daily contact with players, will still have to leave uniforms at the door as they leave training grounds so that they can be washed daily.
In club training ground kitchens all packaging of all new food brought in will have to be disinfected before the food is removed and used.
Phase Four: Full-squad training
The most crucial stage because a positive test for coronavirus coming after this point could be potentially ruinous for plans to kick-off the season again in June. At the start of this phase some experts have said they expect football to be very different.
‘In the beginning players are not going to have the same contact that they are used to. We are going to see another kind of football,’ Rafeal Ramos, the head of Spain’s association of team doctors, has said.
‘Players will not be holding on to each other at corners.’
Once the official fears are assuaged and when competition for places hots up ahead of the return of the last 11 games of the season that could change.
Phase four also begs the biggest most difficult question: Should players, coaches and essential staff now be living together at team hotels or at the training ground away from friends and family?
LaLiga are strongly recommending it although it is not clear at this stage if they will make it obligatory.
The director of Public Health and Preventative Medicine at the University of Madrid, Fernando Rodriguez told El Pais recently: ‘To really protect Messi he must be isolated. Footballers can become infected, say by, playing with their children at home.’
Players, who are still living at home, have been requested by LaLiga to stay indoors and clubs have been instructed to make sure they have all essential items sent to their homes so they don’t have to go out.
After all these, there will be more desire than ever not to be complacent.
The 11 remaining games could be played over seven weeks with four midweek rounds. And clubs should ensure all materials, and that includes the pitch and the balls, are sterilised before and after the game, and at half-time.
Right now this still seems some way off but LaLiga are working on a matchday protocol with clubs and they will be sent out shortly.
Kirsty Coventry became the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the most powerful person in sport, on Monday in a handover ceremony with her predecessor Thomas Bach.
The Zimbabwean is the first woman and African to head the body, and at 41, the youngest since Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who is credited with founding the modern-day Olympics.
Coventry accepted the Olympic key from Bach, who, like her, is an Olympic champion — he won a team fencing gold in 1976 and she earned two swimming golds in 2004 and 2008.
Stepping down after a turbulent 12-year tenure, Bach expressed his confidence that the Olympic movement was “in the best of hands” and Coventry would bring “conviction, integrity and a dynamic perspective” to the role.
Coventry, who swept to a crushing first-round victory in the election in Greece in March, leans heavily on her family.
Aside from her parents, who were present at the ceremony in Lausanne, there is her husband Tyrone Seward, who was effectively her campaign manager, and two daughters, six-year-old Ella, who Bach addresses as “princess”, and Lily, just seven months old.
“Ella saw this spider web in the garden and I pointed out how it is made, and how strong and resilient it is to bad weather and little critters,” said Coventry, who takes over officially at midnight Swiss time Monday (2200 GMT).
“But if one little bit breaks it becomes weaker. That spider web is our movement, it is complex, beautiful and strong but it only works if we remain together and united.”
‘Pure passion’
Coventry said she could not believe how her life had evolved since she first dreamt of Olympic glory in 1992.
“How lucky are we creating a platform for generations to come to reach their dreams,” she said to a packed audience in a marquee in the Olympic House garden, which comprised IOC members, including those she defeated, and dignitaries.
“It is amazing and incredible, indeed I cannot believe that from my dream in 1992 of going to an Olympic Games and winning a medal I would be standing here with you to make dreams for more young children round the world.”
Coventry, who served in the Zimbabwean government as sports and arts Minister from 2019 to this year, said the Olympic movement was much more than a “multi-sport event platform.”
“We (IOC members) are guardians of this movement, which is also about inspiring and changing lives and bringing hope,” she said.
“These things are not to be taken lightly and I will be working with each and every one of you to continue to change lives and be a beacon of hope in a divided world.
“I am really honoured to walk this journey with you.”
Bach, who during his tenure had to grapple with Russian doping and their invasions of the Crimea and Ukraine as well as the Covid pandemic, said he was standing down filled with “gratitude, joy and confidence” in his successor.
“With her election it sends out a powerful message, that the IOC continues to evolve,” said the 71-year-old German, who was named honorary lifetime president in Greece in March.
“It has its first female and African to hold this position, and the youngest president since Pierre de Coubertin. She represents the truly global and youthful spirit of our community.”
Bach, who choked back tears at one point during his valedictory speech, was praised to the rafters by Coventry, who was widely seen as his preferred candidate of the seven vying for his post.
After a warm embrace, she credited him with teaching her to “listen to people and to respect them,” and praised him for leading the movement with “pure passion and purpose.”
“You have kept us united through the most turbulent times.
“You left us with many legacies and hope, thank you from the bottom of my heart for leading us with passion and never wavering from our values.”
-AFP
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Former Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry took over the leadership of the International Olympic Committee from Thomas Bach in a ceremony on Monday with the 2028 Los Angeles Games already threatening to fill her in-tray to overflowing.
Coventry, who starts her eight-year spell officially on Tuesday as the most powerful sports administrator in the world, became the first woman and first African to be elected head of the Olympic ruling body in March.
Much of the discussion during campaigning focused on the IOC’s need for change in its marketing strategies with several top Olympic sponsors having left in the past 12 months.
However, with Los Angeles hit by protests against immigration raids, and relations tense between state and city officials, and the U.S. government, the 2028 Games have become the major talking point in the movement that would ordinarily be focusing on next year’s Milano-Cortina Winter Games.
Coventry has long-standing ties with the United States, dating back to her time as a leading swimmer at Auburn University in Alabama. That will prove useful ahead of LA 2028, and she has said she will seek to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss the Games.
Coventry will also need to find time to help secure the long-term finances of the movement. The IOC, which generates billions of dollars in revenues each year in sponsorship and broadcasting deals for the Olympics, has secured $7.3 billion for 2025-28 and $6.2 billion for 2029-2032. More contracts are expected for both periods.
COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITIES
Coventry is also expected to continue the IOC’s plans to expand commercial opportunities for sponsors at the Olympics with the organisation’s finances in a robust state and the privately-funded LA Olympics a good place to start.
Coventry needed only one round of voting to clinch the race to succeed Bach, beating six other candidates, making history for the African continent, with the IOC having been ruled for 131 years by European or North American men.
Her background and being the first female president will be assets in a diverse IOC membership and the international makeup of Olympic stakeholders.
On Monday she was handed the golden key to the IOC by Bach, who was the organisation’s president for 12 years.
“I am really honoured I get to walk this journey with you. I cannot wait for anything that lies ahead,” Coventry said in her address to IOC members and other Olympic stakeholders.
“I know I have the best team to support me and our movement over the next eight years.”
Coventry will hold a two-day workshop this week to get feedback from members on key IOC issues.
“Working together and consistently finding ways to strengthen and keep united our movement that will ensure that we wake up daily… to continue to inspire,” she said.
A seven-time Olympic medallist, Coventry won 200m backstroke gold at the 2004 Athens Games and in Beijing four years later.
“With her election, you have also sent a powerful message to the world: the IOC continues to evolve,” Bach said in his speech. “With Kirsty Coventry, the Olympic movement will be in the best of hands.”
-Reuters
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Penalties scored when a player accidentally touches the ball twice must be retaken, world soccer’s lawmaking body IFAB has said after Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez had his spot kick disallowed in a Champions League last-16 match.
During a tense shootout with Real Madrid in March, Argentine forward Alvarez slipped and the VAR spotted that his left foot touched the ball slightly before he kicked it with his right.
Although Alvarez converted the penalty, the goal was chalked off and Atletico went on to lose the shootout and were eliminated from the Champions League.
European soccer’s governing body UEFA said the correct decision was made under the current laws but IFAB (International Football Association Board) has said that in such cases the penalty must be retaken.
Atletico Madrid v Real Valladolid – Metropolitano, Madrid, Spain – April 14, 2025 Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez scores their first goal from the penalty spot REUTERS/Susana Vera/File Photo
“(When) the penalty taker accidentally kicks the ball with both feet simultaneously or the ball touches their non-kicking foot or leg immediately after the kick: if the kick is successful, it is retaken,” IFAB said in a circular.
“If the kick is unsuccessful, an indirect free kick is awarded (unless the referee plays advantage when it clearly benefits the defending team). In the case of penalties (penalty shootout), the kick is recorded as missed.”
The decision to disallow Alvarez’s penalty left Atletico boss Diego Simeone livid and the club’s fans outraged.
IFAB added that if the penalty taker deliberately kicks the ball with both feet or deliberately touches it a second time, an indirect free kick is awarded or, in the case of shootouts, it is recorded as missed.
The new procedures are effective for competitions starting on or after July 1, but IFAB said it may be used in competitions that start this month.
-Reuters
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