The Excellence will also start again on Sunday 23 January

The first 2 days of return slip into spring. Requested more streamlined protocol for the return to the field of those recovered from Covid

PAVIA. The Excellence will also restart on Sunday 23 January – except for further postponements – as already arranged by the Regional Committee of the NLD for the other amateur championships, from Promotion to the Third category. A decision that the Crl made official yesterday afternoon at the end of the meeting (by videoconference) held between all the presidents of the regional committees and the extraordinary commissioner of the National Amateur League, Giancarlo Abete. The summit at the end of the year was promoted to take stock of the management of the 2021-22 sports season, in the last few weeks strongly conditioned first by bad weather and then by the Covid emergency which made the return to the field in January 2022 very uncertain. he met with the regional committees and shared what was proposed by Carlo Tavecchio, Lombard number one of the NLD.

Recovery in spring

«The requests we promoted were accepted in the consultative meeting of all the regional presidents – explained Tavecchio at the end of the meeting -. That of the postponement of the national play-offs of Excellence by a few weeks (the first round was scheduled for 22 and 29 May, the second final on 5 and 12 June) to give space to recoveries in the spring, in order to complete the calendars without too many blockages. The Tournament of the Regions (reserved for the Juniores, Allievi, Giovanissimi and women’s youth teams as well as 5-a-side football) initially scheduled for April will be postponed ». Following yesterday’s decision, the Lombardy Regional Committee immediately decided to postpone not only the first return day of Excellence, initially scheduled for January 9, but also the following one on January 16, as already arranged for the other regional categories.

Another issue raised by the Crl is the timing of the so-called “return to play”, the procedure provided by the Ministry of Health for the return to the activity of players recovered from Covid, which at the moment foresees at least one month before returning to the field safely, after a series of tests. Commissioner Abete undertook with the regional presidents to address the issue with the president of the FIGC, Gabriele Gravina, Coni and government institutions so that, while respecting the health of the athletes, there is an update and simplification of the current protocol expected. –

Enrico Venni