Why Tottenham Hotspur is in difficult position with World Cup Qualifiers
By Aaron Coe
Despite a Premier League proclamation that was meant to stop the involvement, it looks like Tottenham and other clubs with South American players are in for a bumpy ride.
COVID-19 has been a problem since it started some 20 months ago and it continues to cause headaches for businesses across the globe. Professional football is not exempt from the continued impact of the ongoing pandemic. This is especially true and especially acute for South American players who play for their national teams in the Premier League, like Giovani Lo Celso and Cristian Romero for Tottenham. And the worst part is this is likely to be an ongoing problem all season long for players in similar situations to the Tottenham duo.
Why do South Americans have it the worst
In this instance, there are two negative converging here that have Spurs South American contingent, which presumably also includes Davinson Sanchez, in a really bad spot. The first is the UK government restrictions around red-list countries in relation to COVID.
At this point, most of South America is on the red list and it really seems unlikely that is changing anytime soon. Given the status of the red list countries in South America according to the UK Government, a mandatory quarantine and a series of tests must occur before anyone – including footballers – traveling from those countries to enter England.
The second problem is FIFA’s instance on all the qualifying games
Under normal circumstances, sure, have the full slate of 18 qualifiers to qualify for the World Cup. However, there are not normal circumstances and changes should be made.
This past summer the European nations held their EURO 2020 tournament a full year late. Likewise, in South America, they held the Copa America. Heck, the US Men’s National Team played and won two major – for CONCACAF – tournaments this year with the Nations League and the Gold Cup.
Under normal circumstances, all of these competitions would have occurred and you would have had essentially two years to build up to the World Cup. Instead, even with the delayed start to the World Cup for Qatar, we will be less than 18 months removed from all of those other major tournaments.
It is bad enough clubs and leagues are going to lose so many players with the World Cup running from mid-November to mid-December next season but the loss of players this season is going to compound.