The primary infectious disease specialist at Milan’s Ospedale Luigi Sacco hospital, Professor Massimo Galli, has blasted suggestions Inter players could join up with their national teams this month.
An outbreak of COVID-19 last week saw Danilo D’Ambrosio, Samir Handanovic, Stefan De Vrij and Matias Vecino all test positive for the virus, with Inter’s players going into isolation until the end of March and the Serie A match against Sassuolo last night postponed.
Despite this, there have been suggestions that should Inter continue to post negative test results this weekend, their training ground could be reopened and players could join up with national teams, though Galli was scathing of this.
“To think that someone can travel around the world after having had close contact with positive cases seems to be absolute madness to me,” Galli declared in an interview published in today’s newspaper edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport.
“The situation is unpleasant, it seems everyone wants to outdo the others without considering the main issue is people’s health. When there is an outbreak of a certain magnitude, as in the case of Inter with so many players involved, a suitable number of days of quarantine is required.
“For a period of two weeks, anyone who has come into contact with the positive cases should not leave home. Then there are the protocols that provide the possibility of players returning to training, but either alone or with their usual group.
“Football is a contact sport and the players have also begun to embrace each other again when celebrating goals. It is better for those who are within the group to limit contact with others as much as possible.”
Galli hit back at national team federations pressuring Inter and others to release players for international duty and suggested that it was irresponsible to do so.
“Travelling has no guarantees of safety and from both a healthcare and protocol view, it would be much better to remain in isolation. I do not even want to think about the consequences of all the possible movement.
“If the ATS (health authority) said no travel, then it means they must not go. You cannot disregard the rules and for me, the complaints of the federations do not hold up. The players will be free to circulate only two weeks after the last contact with a positive case, so not before next week,” Galli concluded.
