Inter players have been explicitly banned from responding to national team call-ups by Milan’s local health authority, according to an Italian media report today.
Gazzetta dello Sport’s print edition states that all Inter players must isolate at home for 14 days, until March 31, with the only travel allowed being the journey between home and the training ground in Appiano Gentile.
As a result, Inter players cannot attend national team duty and while many national teams have been accepting of the situation, others are hopeful of the situation changing.
The Milan-based publication highlights that clubs are under no circumstances obliged to release players for national team duty, because there is nothing about this in FIFA’s rules.
Previously, players could still attend provided that they travelled privately, but the situation has now changed given the risk of contagion and the number of different variants of the virus out there.
If players decide to break the rules they would be doing so at their own risk and could be forced into mandatory quarantine upon their return.
Inter have four recorded COVID-19 cases within the first-team squad after Danilo D’Ambrosio, Matias Vecino, Samir Handanovic and Stefan de Vrij tested positive this week.
Tomorrow’s match against Sassuolo in Serie A has been postponed but there were no further positive cases reported in the tests Inter players carried out yesterday, the results of which emerged today.