Benfica and Belenenses SAD want to play today, as expected, regardless of the Covid-19 outbreak that hit the blue team, with at least 15 infected elements. According to what the CM learned, the two teams expressed to the League of Clubs yesterday their intention to compete today, at 20:30, at Jamor (Sport TV 1), the 12th round of the national championship.
However, despite the will of the sports directors, the final decision was in the hands of the health delegate from Western Lisbon and Oeiras. The Specific Plan for Professional Football created to deal with the pandemic specifies in article 10 that it is up to the “territorially competent health authority” to decide whether, in the face of a positive case, it is necessary to quarantine the entire team (see infographic on the side).If that is the case, Belenenses SAD will no longer be able to go to the game and it will be postponed. The rule is that the match takes place, as long as the team affected by the outbreak has at least “seven players, a goalkeeper and a captain”. In the case of Belenenses SAD, it will be necessary to resort to the under-23 team, something that the coach, Filipe Cândido, had already admitted yesterday, even before the outbreak was known, given the nine unavailable players in the main squad.
The high number of elements with Covid-19 caught the leaders of Belenenses SAD by surprise. The first cases were barely known, and as the rules determine, the club reported them to the health delegate, who at the end of the afternoon began to analyze the situation. A new round of tests was carried out on the elements that did not test positive, the results of which were being known in a drip at the closing time of this edition.If no new infections appear and it is concluded that there is no chain of contagion that puts public health at risk, the health delegate must allow the game – the 600th of Jorge Jesus as head coach in the Portuguese championship – to take place. This is the will of Benfica and Belenenses SAD. The reds understand that they don’t have dates to reschedule the match due to the overloaded schedule in the next six weeks, period in which the game would have to take place to comply with the regulations.
jesus guarantees seferovic as holder
“Seferovic will always have everyone’s confidence as always, so much so that he will start this Saturday’s game”, clarified Jorge Jesus, referring to the Swiss failure, in Barcelona, for the Champions League. The coach addressed the draw for the Portuguese Cup (FC Porto is the opponent). “We’ve had no luck in the draws. In Champions League they were in one of the strongest groups and so did we.”
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