The Omicron wave creates chaos in Serie A. Four games will not be played and Juve-Napoli, for which there is the ok of the Neapolitan ASL, will be staged with one of the two suitors decimated by positivity and quarantines.
The championship that restarts from the second round on the day of the Befana with stadiums with reduced capacity and the obligation of Ffp2 masks for the fans takes into account the increase in infections and blocks of the health authorities. Serie A tries to hold its position in front of the offensive of the Omicron variant that invests players and staff but is already losing the pieces, even if the League – gathered for an extraordinary Council – is compact in defending the championship and continuing with the races. A new Uefa-style protocol will be drawn up: with 13 players available (including a goalkeeper) there will be an obligation to play, even by fishing from the Primavera. In addition, the League will appeal to the TAR against the measures of the ASL that will not take into account the provisions on quarantines of 30 December last.
Today, however, Atalanta-Turin, Fiorentina-Udinese, Salernitana-Venice and Bologna-Inter will not be played, the first two for the blocking of the transfer of grenade and Friulians, the other two for the quarantine imposed by the ASL. The Campania region chose not to show up, not even with the youth teams. Napoli had the green light to play the match against Juventus in Turin.In a climate of growing uncertainty, between conflicting decisions of the ASL and concern of technicians and players, during the day there were also rumors about a possible new draconian squeeze on the championship, and not just on capacity.
Meanwhile, after Serie B and Lega Pro, even the Amateurs have postponed the days, setting the resumption on 23 January. The eve of the restart had passed between announcements of new positivity and some healing, until then the ‘sentences’ of the health authorities arrived one after the other. The Asl Città di Torino, after having found an outbreak of Covid in the team group, blocked the grenades before leaving for Bergamo. The eight positives are in isolation, the whole group will go to quarantine for five days and therefore Toro will not be able to play even Sunday’s home game with Fiorentina.
The same decision was taken in Udine, with the Friuli Centrale health authority which essentially banned Udinese from playing both the match against Fiorentina at Franchi and Sunday’s match against Atalanta. Salernitana has announced that she will not show up at the Arechi stadium for the match against Venice. The Campania players have eleven positives in the team group and the ASL of Salerno has put another 25 people in isolation. The club had asked Lega Serie A to postpone the match which was not agreed. Same thing did Bologna, stopped by the ASL for the matches with Inter and on Sunday with Cagliari. A package of referrals that will be complicated to manage in an already very busy schedule.