Monday, December 20, 2021
Decision about game cancellation
UEFA throws Tottenham out of Conference League
Tottenham Hotspur have a realistic chance of progressing ahead of the last day of the Conference League preliminary round. But Corona is slowing the Premier League club, now UEFA is finally stopping the race to catch up. The virus and the schedule are to blame.
After the duel against Stade Rennes, which was canceled due to the corona, the English football club Tottenham Hotspur was eliminated from the Conference League. The failed game was rated 0: 3, as the UEFA announced. Tottenham remains third in Group G behind Rennes and Vitesse Arnheim. Bitter for the Londoners: With a simple victory over the table leaders from France, who were already established as group winners before the game, they would have made it into the knockout round.
After a corona outbreak at the Premier League club, the game was canceled on December 9th. Tottenham’s coach Antonio Conte had confirmed several corona cases at the time. Accordingly, eight Spurs players and five employees tested positive for the corona virus. In the league there were also game cancellations, Tottenham have only played 15 games after 18 match days and last came to a 2-2 draw against Liverpool on Sunday. In the tightly-timed schedule in England, Tottenham still has games to play on December 22nd, 26th and 28th, so finding a date for the game against Rennes was therefore impossible.
“Deserves To Play This Game”
According to the UEFA regulations, the group stage must be completed by 31 December. If a timely rescheduling is not possible, according to UEFA rules, “the club that cannot take part in the game will be held responsible”. In this case, a 3-0 defeat will be declared.
Tottenham coach Antonio Conte had already complained about the situation during the week: “We deserve to play this game and try to have a chance to advance to the next round.” Conte wanted the Spurs to postpone their game against Leicester so they could face Rennes, but that didn’t work. “The Premier League didn’t want to postpone the game against Leicester, maybe because we have to play against Burnley and Brighton. We have already postponed two games. I can understand that, we can understand that. On the other hand, I think we deserve it, to use our chance against Rennes to get into the next group. ”
The English had even offered to renounce their home rights and travel to France for the decisive group game. “We’re not finding a good solution between UEFA and the Premier League, why does Tottenham have to pay for it?”