Bottoni, councilor from Pavia of the NLD: “Tomorrow the OK from Coni and the Federation, in Lombardy three groups of 11 teams”
PAVIA
The leaders of Lombard football hope to give in the conference call tomorrow evening all the answers expected from the 33 companies of Excellence who said yes to the resumption of competitive activity, without further postponements after the one, surprisingly, last Friday. “We are confident that we can announce the go-ahead for collegiate training, and no longer just individually, as early as Tuesday 16”, explains Tommaso Bottoni, lawyer, former footballer, councilor of the Lnd Regional Committee in Pavia. As for the timing of the return to the field and the format of the championship, “our proposals are already under the attention of the Football Federation”.
The orientation is for three groups of 11 teams, with one-way matches: the first promoted to D, hypothesis play off to define the grid of the clubs to be included in the repechage rankings; relegation block. Tournament starting after Easter, Wednesday 7 April or the following weekend, to give players and staff those 15-20 days necessary to reach an acceptable physical condition, after the long stop, reducing the risk of injuries dilated by the many commitments condensed into less than three months. Yes, because the anomalous 2021 season of Excellence will necessarily have to be concluded by June 30, with or without the final queue of the play-offs.
A race against time that makes the ok to resume group training even more urgent and necessary. To do this, a couple of bureaucratic steps are still missing: the recognition by Coni of Excellence as a category “of pre-eminent national interest” and the subsequent, definitive yes of the FIGC at the restart.
It seems that the text of the deliberations is already ready and we only await the signature of the president of the Football Association, Giuseppe Gravina. Hence the optimism of the Lombard committee on an acceleration of the process in the next few hours and on a positive outcome already by tomorrow, which would allow Carlo Tavecchio to announce the happy news to the companies in the direct online line at 20.30 .
In Milan, it is assumed that, with the latest go-ahead, the adoption for Excellence of the same anti-Covid protocol in force for the D series would be almost automatic, which allows collegial sessions (with contrasts and matches) and provides that it is possible to request the postponement of matches with more than three positives in the squad (as well as if two of the infected are goalkeepers or three under). –