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The organization has already sent a letter with the relevant content to UEFA.
November 18, 2020, 09:31
The official website of the Football Association of Ukraine published the position of this organization regarding the preparation of the Ukrainian team to participate in the away game against Switzerland. The game was supposed to take place the day before, Tuesday, November 17, but was canceled due to the decision of the health department responsible for the city of Lucerne, which sent our team to quarantine due to new detected cases of COVID-19 infection.
The UAF adheres to their point of view, according to which Andriy Shevchenko’s team is ready to play the match of the last day of the UEFA Nations League on 18 November.
The organization sent a corresponding content letter to UEFA, setting out in it all the nuances of the current situation and proposing, in its opinion, the best ways to solve the problem.
In particular, the UAF is clearly convinced that national team players and staff who test negative for Covid-19 are eligible to participate in the match in accordance with the UEFA Return-to-Play Protocol. There are more than 13 players on the list of the national team to participate in the match (including at least one goalkeeper), so the organization asks the higher authority to help obtain from the local authorities in Switzerland a decision to release proven players from quarantine and permission to participate in the match.
In addition, the UAF assumes the responsibility of doing everything possible to form a completely new squad according to UEFA’s proposal for the evening of 18 November, but considers it impossible for objective reasons: the under-21 youth team, whose players could To form the nucleus the new team, they played the qualifier for Euro 2021 the night before (they beat a one-year-old boy from Northern Ireland with a score of 3: 0 – ed.), so, according to the rules UEFA club, players cannot participate in another game for 48 hours.
The other available players that could theoretically be called up for the main team are located in different cities or abroad. At the same time, they must be tested in a UEFA certified laboratory. It is possible to deliver such a laboratory in Ukraine no earlier than 9:00 am on November 18, but at the same time, the minimum departure time will be at 21:00 Kiev time; you should expect negative results.
Also, not all Ukrainian players have biometric passports for visa-free travel to EU countries. All the above-mentioned circumstances make it practically impossible to organize a direct charter flight to Switzerland within the allotted time. The same reasons exclude the fault of the selection of Ukraine in this situation.
A proposal from the UAF: the match could be postponed long enough to form a new team, as stipulated in UEFA Circular 66, but this decision is the sole responsibility of UEFA.
At the same time, the Association of Ukraine remains faithful to the position that the outcome of this fight must be determined accurately on the football field and in accordance with the principles of Fair Play.
The match between the national teams of Switzerland and Ukraine was to take place on November 17, with a start time of 9:45 p.m. Kiev time.
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