\n
Kolkata, Feb 1 (PTI): The I-League season will resume on 3 March, two months after it was suspended due to COVID-19 outbreak inside its bio-bubble here, the All India Football Federation said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The AIFF said the bio-bubble will start functioning again from 20 February onwards and strict COVID-19 protocols will be enforced to ensure the safety of the players and officials.<\/p>\n
On 3 January, the I-League was suspended by the AIFF after a fresh COVID-19 outbreak hit the participating teams inside the bio-bubble here.<\/p>\n
It was learnt at that time that a total of 45 COVID-19 cases had hit the league which prompted the AIFF to suspend the league for at least six weeks. All the players and officials had left the bio-bubble after that.<\/p>\n
“Continuing as before, the Hero I-League will be played from within the safety of a bio-bubble, which will begin on February 20, with the players and officials needing to travel with three negative RT-PCR tests before joining the bio-bubble,” the AIFF said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“Additionally, on the advice of Dr. Harsh Mahajan, Member of AIFF’s Sports Medical Committee, every players is also required to do a 12 lead ECG before arrival,” it added.<\/p>\n
Once inside the bio-bubble, all the players and officials will need to serve seven days in quarantine, with three more tests done on them.<\/p>\n
On returning three negative RT-PCR tests in quarantine, the players and officials will be free to operate from within the bio-bubble and attend training sessions, meals, team meetings and matches.<\/p>\n
“We had stopped the league initially as we wanted to ensure the safety of the players and officials involved, and did not want COVID-19 to spread,” said the AIFF Leagues CEO Sunando Dhar.<\/p>\n
Now, after getting the clearance from the relevant authorities and a go-ahead from Dr. Harsh Mahajan, we feel that with the positivity rates going down, this is the best time to restart the season.<\/p>\n
“I have been in touch with all the clubs, and they have all expressed their excitement, and are looking forward to the restart,” he added.<\/p>\n
Only six matches of the I-League season have been played so far\u2014 on 26 and 27 December\u2014 before it was suspended.<\/p>\n
On 29 December, I-League was suspended for a week after COVID-19 breached its bio-bubble. Eight players and three officials had tested positive for the virus.<\/p>\n
There will be no change in format of the I-League. The 13 teams will play against each other once in a round-robin format in the first round.<\/p>\n
Once the first round is over, the teams will be divided into two groups. Group A will consist of the top seven teams that will fight for the championship title, while Group B will consist of the bottom six teams which will fight a relegation battle.<\/p>\n
Each club will play their opponents in their respective groups once in a round-robin format in the second round.<\/p>\n
The matches will be played across three venues\u2014 Kalyani Municipal Stadium, Naihati Stadium and the Mohun Bagan Ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kolkata, Feb 1 (PTI): The I-League season will resume on 3 March, two months after it was suspended due to COVID-19 outbreak inside its bio-bubble here, the All India Football Federation said on Tuesday. The AIFF said the bio-bubble will start functioning again from 20 February onwards and strict COVID-19 protocols will be enforced to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-183072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}