Premier League: Six positive coronavirus tests across three clubs

SourceBBC

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There were six positive tests for coronavirus across three Premier League clubs on Sunday and Monday, as the top flight prepares to resume in June.

The unnamed players or staff, who have tested positive, will now self-isolate for seven days.

A total of 748 players and staff from 19 clubs were tested. The remaining club did their tests on Tuesday so will be included in Saturday’s results.

Squads are starting non-contact training from Tuesday.

The Premier League has been suspended since 13 March because of the Covid-19 pandemic, with 92 fixtures remaining.

The league had previously identified 12 June for matches to possibly start again, but there is now an expectation this will need to be pushed back.

“The Premier League is providing this aggregated information for the purposes of competition integrity and transparency,” it said in a statement.

“No specific details as to clubs or individuals will be provided by the league and results will be made public in this way after each round of testing.”

Clubs were permitted to test up to 40 personnel and some did not use their full allocation, while some samples are still yet to be processed.

At Monday’s “Project Restart” meeting, English top-flight clubs agreed to stage one of the return-to-training protocols.

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As well as training in small groups of no more than five, sessions must last no longer than 75 minutes for each player. Social distancing must be adhered to.

Official protocols sent to players and managers last week, and obtained by the BBC, revealed corner flags, balls, cones, goalposts and even playing surfaces will be disinfected after each training session.

Ongoing measures in further guidance include twice-weekly testing as well as a daily pre-training questionnaire and temperature check.

The German Bundesliga became the first major European football league to restart after the coronavirus shutdown when it resumed behind closed doors over the weekend.

It took the Bundesliga nearly five weeks from starting non-contact training to playing matches. After Monday’s announcement by the Premier League, that timeframe would mean either 19 or 26 June for a potential restart.

Every team in Germany’s top flight has been in quarantine, going from a hotel to their training ground for the week leading up to the restart.

On Monday, the Premier League’s medical adviser Mark Gillett said that discussions will take place in the coming weeks over whether clubs would have to isolate in a hotel for 14 days before play resumes.