Celtic take action to bring back international players

The wave of international players testing positive is becoming ridiculous and reports suggest Celtic have decided to take some action.

Purely just from a Celtic perspective the situation with players away on international duty being affected, even if not infected by Covid-19 themselves is ridiculous, chaotic and as the club themselves have said in their official statement when Nir Bitton did test positive the situation is:

"“Very concerning and frustrating.”"

So who could blame the club if they decided to take serious and significant steps to protect Celtic players.

In that statement Celtic make it very clear that they have put an enormous amount of work in to make the club a safe and secure working environment. Everyone knows this isn’t easy but the club have made this work successfully so far.

"“Although we will never be complacent, throughout our own Club testing programme, our squad has returned around 2,000 individual negative tests since the outbreak of the pandemic, with not one positive test.”"

The statement does simmer with the frustration being faced with players like Ryan Christie, Odsonne Edouard, Nir Bitton having moved out of that safe club environment and all now needing to be in isolation. It will no doubt reflect the concerns of the positive tests within the Irish and Israeli international groups being near misses for Shane Duffy and Hatem Abd Elhamed.

Scotland Under-19s faced issues when coach Billy Stark declared  a positive test at half time in their recent match. And with the Czech squad due to face Scotland in midweek reporting more positives, the story and threat to Celtic players continue. The club statement sets out that need for more to happen to protect the international Bhoys:

"“While we apportion no blame whatsoever to anyone, this is now a very difficult position for us and, clearly, for all other clubs. Like all other clubs, we must do all we can to protect our squad and limit the very clear and obvious risks to players.“We will be maintaining close contact with international associations in order to ensure everything possible is being done with regards to the care and protection of our players.  The priority must be the safety of our players at all times.”"

The club were specific in the statement and on social media earlier in response to fan comments about players being recalled to the club from international duty.

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News is though emerging that Celtic are escalating this matter further and aren’t settling for an ‘out of our hands’ answer to the problem. It is serious enough to warrant that approach.

According to Video Celts, Celtic have requested the return of their international players currently with Scotland, Ireland, Israel and Norway. There is also reference to other Scottish clubs having backed this move.

If so, that’s a strong challenge to take action to mitigate this awful international mess and return control back to the relative safety of the Hoops’ own protection and testing regime. But it is one Celtic fans will strongly welcome. Although the club rightly point out the FIFA regulations these are extraordinary times and we are seeing precedents being set elsewhere. Red Bull Salzburg for example.

What will happen? With Nations League games on Sunday and preparations well underway it’s unlikely we will see any immediate response. But shots have been fired, statements issued and the subject is by no means closed. Hopefully it will lead to some serious actions to help get a grip of matters and protect players better from all clubs and nationalities.