CONMEBOL takes decision on World Cup qualifiers which affects Chelsea and other Premier League clubs
A report by football.london mentions that CONMEBOL, football’s governing body in South America, has decided to call off the World Cup qualifiers in the continent at the end of this month, which comes as good news for Chelsea.
This means that Premier League clubs will retain their South American players at the end of March. The qualifiers have been postponed and will be rescheduled for a future date.
This means that Chelsea will not see Thiago Silva (Brazil) and Willy Caballero (Argentina) fly out to play for their national team this season for the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
Earlier, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp and Manchester United gaffer Ole Gunnar Solskjaer made a fuss about the qualifiers going ahead. In the scenario that they weren’t postponed, clubs would have lost their South American players for a period of at least 10 days.
No qualifiers
This is due to the Covid-19 ruling by the government that would require anyone coming back to the UK from ‘red list’ countries would require to quarantine for 10 days. (h/t football.london)
That list, of course, includes all of South America. It also contains Portugal and several parts of Africa. The international break was scheduled to run from 22nd March to 1st April.
Normally, FIFA rulings require the clubs to release their players for international duty during the international breaks on the footballing calendar. But this has changed temporarily.
FIFA added a Covid-19 clause in the ruling which allows the clubs to retain their players and not allow them to leave the United Kingdom until the end of April. This does not matter in this case anymore, as the qualifiers are now postponed.
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Chelsea now take take on another Merseyside club in Everton after seeing off Liverpool last week. The Blues are in 4th spot and would look to continue their good run of form.