Antonio Conte’s Tottenham Hotspur released a statement protesting the Premier League decision to postpone their game with Arsenal, arguing they should follow the example set by Serie A’s COVID protocol.
The North London derby was meant to take place on Sunday, but it was called off with just hours to spare following a request from Arsenal.
They were allowed to postpone the fixture because the absences taken into account including those with COVID-19, existing and recent injuries and players on international duty at the Africa Cup of Nations.
Under the new Serie A protocol agreed this week, Arsenal would not have been able to postpone the match, because only COVID-19 cases are taken into account.
The Italian protocol agreed with the clubs, Government and local health authorities states a game can be called off if a squad has at least 35 per cent of players testing positive for COVID-19 at the same time.
They do not take injuries or international duty into account when making that calculation.
Tottenham, whose director Fabio Paratici and coach Conte are Italian, have released a statement urging the Premier League to follow a similar example.
“We are extremely surprised that this application has been approved. We ourselves were disqualified from the European Conference League after a significant number of COVID cases meant we needed to reschedule a fixture and our application to move our Leicester fixture was not approved – only for it to be subsequently postponed when Leicester applied.
“The original intention of the guidance was to deal with player availability directly affected by COVID cases, resulting in depleted squads that when taken together with injuries would result in the club being unable to field a team.
“We do not believe it was the intent to deal with player availability unrelated to COVID. We may now be seeing the unintended consequences of this rule. It is important to have clarity and consistency on the application of the rule.
“Yet again fans have seen their plans disrupted at unacceptably short notice.”
Club statement.
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) January 15, 2022