Did Tottenham Hotspur have less than 13 players for Rennes, maybe

The first question the Disciplinary Body for UEFA must consideration in the Tottenham vs Stade Rennais situation is if Spurs had13 players available. 

Tottenham may be looking at a forfeit loss, being out of the Conference League, and possible disciplinary action for the canceling of their match against Stade Rennais if it was deemed that Spurs had 13 or more players available. That is the first question and possibly only question the UEFA Control, Ethics, and Disciplinary Body needs to answer, so did Spurs have 13 players available?

Who counts for Tottenham towards the 13

As with any competition UEFA has rules about players that can be named to the squad and with these continental club competitions, teams have both an A- and a B- list of players. Tottenham named 36 players for the group stage squad, of which 25 are on the A-list.

It is from that 25-man A-list roster that Spurs would have had to have fewer than 13 players plus a goalkeeper from. We know Tottenham had to have a keeper available, given there were three of them named in the squad and none were rumored to be among those who tested posted.

The goalkeeper is out, but so too are three from the 25, leaving Spurs with 22 possible players, were 13 available? Maybe?

Tottenham had at least eight out with Covid

The first news of any players being ill from Covid impacted Tottenham well before the missed game on Thursday. Just before Spurs match on Sunday against Norwich, Bryan Gil and Emerson Royal were out having tested positive.

From there, things went downhill, and by Tuesday that number had grown to six players who had tested positive along with two coaches. In addition to Gil and Royal, it was reported that Lucas Moura, Heung-min Son, Ben Davies, and Cristian Romero had all tested positive as well.

It was later reported that two more players tested positive on Wednesday, taking Spurs total to eight players as well as five members of the coaching staff. Antonio Conte talked of only having 10 players available after his final training session.

The six names that have been reported are all players on the A-list and even if the other two unknown players are as well, that still leaves Spurs with 14 players available.

Spurs had one out before this started

There may very well be more than eight-player who received positive tests for Tottenham making the13 really close. The reality is Spurs only need one more player to have tested positive to be there.

Ryan Sessegnon received a red card in Spurs’ last Conference League match at Mura making him ineligible for this match. If you add Sessegnon to the eight reported positive cases and Tottenham is now down to 13 A-list players.

Of course, 13 should have been enough to play so the key thing we do not know that only Tottenham and presumably UEFA  do is if more than eight players tested positive. If one more did, thanks to Sessegnon’s red card, then at least the first question the UEFA Control, Ethics, and Disciplinary Board will determine should go Spurs way and from there, anything could happen.