corona
Why are many EM players not vaccinated?
The Spanish national team goes into the European Football Championship with big problems
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The European Football Championship 2021 is coming up. The first game starts on June 11th. But more and more corona cases are becoming known in the teams.
Painted faces in the national colors, happy chants, international understanding: the European Football Championship is always an eventful spectacle. On June 11, the tournament will start a year late, but the whole world is still struggling with the corona pandemic. Vaccination is global, but not all have received the saving prick – including some professional footballers. Why not?
For the German national team, it has been clear since the end of May: The team will go to the European Championship without complete vaccination. “No player has been vaccinated so far, generally young healthy people have their turn late,” said DFB team doctor Tim Meyer (53) according to the website “ran”. The previous prioritization also applied to them: “Vaccinations are not available in any quantity. I believe that we have to adhere to this order – this also applies to national players.” To catch up on the vaccination during the tournament, he thinks “too dangerous in view of the possible side effects,” says Meyer.
The German national team will have to play for the first time on June 15th – Joachim Löw’s (61) men will face France in Group F. So far, the DFB team has been lucky with corona cases – other national teams cannot say that of themselves.
Spain’s national team is preparing for an emergency
Numerous players have already tested positive for the virus – the Spanish and Swedish national teams have been hit particularly hard. Tricky: Next Monday (June 14th) both teams should face each other on the field.
Sergio Busquets (32), captain of the Spanish national team, also tested positive for COVID-19 – a huge setback for the entire team. Since the news, the players are only allowed to train to a limited extent. This applies until at least Friday, the day on which the EM opens. But now another infection case in the team is causing concern: Diego Llorente (27). As the ARD Sportschau reports, he tested positive on Wednesday night and, like Busquets before him, left directly.
The Spanish team now wants to help out with a replacement. The Uefa has stipulated that a team can play with several positive tests as long as 13 negative tested players (including a goalkeeper) are available – healthy players may be nominated later. If a team has to cancel, the game will be counted as a 3-0 defeat. An emergency vaccination could possibly help: Loud “Picture” the inter-territorial health council is supposed to decide today whether the Spanish players should be vaccinated with the Johnson & Johnson single-use vaccine.
Blitz application for vaccination and Sweden’s six-point plan
José Manuel Rodriguez Uribes (52), Spanish Minister of Sport and Culture, is said to have already submitted a lightning application for a possible vaccination. If the application is granted, the Spanish national team could be vaccinated shortly before the Sweden game on Monday – including possible side effects that have a negative effect on the performance of the kickers.
The situation is similar with the Swedes: two players tested positive on Tuesday. The team is now tightening the measures. Rapid tests are to be carried out on every player every day, and the number of PCR tests is to be increased. The Swedish national team is following a set up six-point plan, which also includes that the athletes should only be treated outside and for a limited time. There has been no talk of vaccinations within the team so far.