DOHA (Qatar): The Qatar Stars League (QSL) recently announced its intentions to complete the remaining rounds of the league, but ensuring the safety of players, officials and fans is going to be a challenging task.
Ahmed Khellil Abbassi, Executive Director of Competition and Football Development at the Qatar Stars League (QSL), spoke about the general plan for players to return to training after the end of their annual vacation in preparation for the resumption of 2019-20 QNB Stars League.
The competitions will return after a long break. How do you view it?
It’s a positive step towards returning to normal life after a break. We should all adapt to and coexist with the current situation, so that things will return to how they were before the coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19), taking into account safety and security measures for everyone.
We noticed a lot of engagement from the players during the break, through the commitment to distance training. How did you see that?
This period was very important for players to maintain fitness, as we noticed a great commitment being shown by them. The technical staff also developed appropriate programmes for distance training and they followed the players, either in person or via GPS devices.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the clubs, coaches and players for the great co-operation from their side during this difficult period, which reflects on the professionalism and discipline that we’ve achieved.
The QSL has taken many necessary measures to ensure players’ safety when they return to training. What’re the most prominent among them?
Ensuring the health and safety of players as well as technical and administrative staff is one of the most important priorities of QSL. Accordingly, we’ve developed a protocol approved by the Ministry of Public Health, taking into account the examples and protocols for leagues that have resumed again, as this protocol aims to minimize and control the risk of the virus for the teams and players when they return to training and matches while following all preventive and precautionary measures.
Also, according to the protocol and general plan, there’ll be three phases:
The first phase is the beginning of training after being tested negative on COVID 19, as per the precautionary measures. Training will resume on 10th June.
The second phase is team training in group after being tested negative on COVID 19 on the second examination, as per the precautionary measures.
The third phase is the start of official competitions and matches conforming to the approved precautionary measures and protocol for match-day operations.
It may be noted that there will be an educational video for players to explain the protocol and general plan, and a workshop will be organized to explain each phase for technical, administrative, and medical staff.
