Campeonato Paulista starts, again, under the direct influence of Covid-19

The first tournament on the Brazilian football calendar in 2022, the Copa São Paulo for juniors began on January 2 and soon collided with the omicron variant of the coronavirus. Infections became numerous, which raised questions about the possibility of greater restrictions.

Clubs like Palmeiras, São Paulo and Botafogo were just the first with confirmed cases of young athletes with Covid-19. Comercial needed to remove seven players against Chapadinha-MA, and Atlético Mineiro reached 12 casualties against Andirá-AC.

“We made a protocol about a brigadeiro sky for Copinha, but we were surprised by this accelerated growth”, he told leaf the doctor of the FPF (São Paulo Football Federation), Moisés Cohen.

The scenario led the federation to adopt stricter protocols in its main competition, the Campeonato Paulista, which started this Sunday (23). In the opening match, Palmeiras defeated Novorizontino, in Novo Horizonte, 2-0.​

​Zé Rafael and Dudu scored the goals of the match, which, like all the competition until further notice, had an audience limited to 70% of the stadium’s capacity.

For the third consecutive year, the main state in Brazil is held under tension and uncertainties linked to the pandemic. In 2020, it was paralyzed for four months and resumed without an audience. In 2021, it was entirely carried out with empty stands.

“We respect and will always comply with all the protocol presented, but we hope that things will go differently this year. The last two were very harmful to the clubs in financial terms”, said the president of Mirassol, Edson Ermenegildo.

“We are out of base categories. We have reactivated everything now, we play Copinha. We will have the sub-15 and sub-17”, added the manager, trying to maintain optimism, but without ceasing to show fear. “We hope we don’t back down.”

In the week of the start of Paulista, a strict protocol was defined by the FPF medical committee. Among players, members of technical committees, delegates and referees, those who do not have the complete vaccination schedule will have to sign a risk term.

There will also be a requirement for antigen PCR tests carried out with a maximum advance of 24 hours in relation to the games. Only those who had Covid-19 from January 1 will not need to be tested. The period of removal of the infected will be ten days from the positive test.

The FPF hopes to avoid the behind-the-scenes tension experienced over the past two years. In 2021, the entity showed discontent and publicly disagreed with recommendations from the state government and the São Paulo Public Ministry. In this scenario, matches were taken outside São Paulo, and President Reinaldo Carneiro Bastos had to defend himself when he was called a denialist.

“Football knows the situation we live in. We are not blind, denialists […] If football causes damage, we will be the first to stop. But science and medicine indicate that football has played its part, so we didn’t take the government’s decision naturally”, said Carneiro Bastos, in March of last year.

The situation improved throughout 2021, and the year ended with no audience limitation in the stadiums. But the omicron variant changed the landscape and provoked new restrictions, seen at sporting events around the world.

The most noisy episode took place in Australia, which canceled the visa of tennis player Novak Djokovic and deported him. Owner of 20 Grand Slam titles, the Serbian was prevented from playing in the Australian Open for not being vaccinated against Covid-19.

“I went to teach a course in Davos [na Suíça], with all doses up to date. To enter, however, I had to be tested. And every two days he repeated the tests again. We have to obey, they are rules. Measure [veto a Djokovic] was right. The example was bad”, said Moisés Cohen.

In Germany, the national football championship resumed behind closed doors on January 7. Even before the announcement by the local government, clubs such as Bayern and Red Bull Leipzig anticipated and started to act without an audience.

The country’s federation made an appeal for athletes to keep their vaccinations up to date and take the booster dose. In England, 16 Premier League games were postponed in December, including those on the “boxing day”, traditional round on the 26th.

“Most likely, it will be necessary to insert the bubbles again. The immediate measure needs to be to get the public out of the stadium, because the degree of transmission is very high and the forecast is for more than 1 million cases daily. to the lockdown,” neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis told Folha.

In the NBA, between December and January, more than a dozen games were affected by outbreaks that left teams without a minimum of eight players available for matches – the squads have 15 athletes.

“Testing and rigor also need to increase in protocols. The priority is not to overload the hospital system”, cried Nicolelis.

All four of the state’s big ones came forward with cases on their rosters. The biggest outbreak occurred in São Paulo, with 14 cases. Santos and Palmeiras recorded similar numbers. Corinthians suffered fewer casualties, with three cases.