AFCON qualifiers: French sports ministry orders clubs to release players

THE French sports ministry has overruled clubs in the country by relaxing the quarantine laws for players going for international duty outside of the European Union. 

Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 clubs had insisted on preventing their players from featuring in this week and next week’s Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers due to strict restrictions on travelling during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Now the ministry is allowing the players to forgo a quarantine upon their return to France.

“The Ministry of Sports confirms that international players returning from official competitions outside the EU with their national team, whether French or foreign, are exempt from the seven-day waiting period as long as they comply with a strict sanitary and medical protocol (bubble + daily PCR test on their return to their club),” the Sports ministry said on Saturday.

“They will therefore be able to train and play without the application of a seven-day delay.”

The French league had said last week that Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 clubs “would not make available for selection the foreign players summoned for matches outside the EU / EEA zone during the next international period in March.”

Super Eagles forward Moses Simon has been stopped by Nantes from travelling for the AFCON qualifiers against Benin Republic and Lesotho over Covid-19 quarantine concerns and he has already been replaced with Enyimba’s Anayo Iwuala.

Spanish clubs have also prevented their players from joining up with their international squads, with Leganes and Almeria withdrawing Kenneth Omeruo and Sadiq Umar respectively from the Super Eagles squad.

FIFA ruled in February that clubs were not expected to release players if there is a “mandatory period of quarantine or self-isolation of at least five days upon arrival” in the country where the club is located or the country where the match is taking place.