October 5 – One of the biggest games in European domestic league football was plunged into chaos on Sunday when visitors Napoli failed to turn up for their Serie A showdown with Juventus after their squad was placed in isolation following positive coronavirus tests.
With two positive results, Napoli said they were ordered not to travel by their local health body. But Italian football authorities refused to reschedule the game with Napoli now likely to be forced to forfeit the fixture with a 3-0 defeat.
Juventus duly arrived at the Allianz Stadium in Turin an hour before the game but there was no sign of the visitors who appealed unsuccessfully for the fixture, which was officially called off 45 minutes after the scheduled kick-off time, to be postponed.
A Napoli spokesman told Reuters that the team had been asked to stay at home after two players, midfielders Piotr Zielinski and Eljif Elmas, tested positive in the previous four days. He said the club would fiercely contest having to forfeit the game.
Despite being aware their opponents would not be participating, Juventus reportedly acted as though they were preparing for the game to go ahead.
Juventus president Andrea Agnelli admitted Aurelio De Laurentiis, his Napoli counterpart, had asked him to postpone the match.
“De Laurentiis sent me a message, asking for the game to be postponed and I replied that, as always, Juventus will follow the rules,” Agnelli was quoted as saying. “If we don’t, we are failing as citizens rather than sportsmen.”
To complicate matters further, a week previously Napoli hosted Genoa despite the visitors having had 17 positive tests. But Genoa’s match at home to Torino on Saturday was postponed.
The confusion calls into question whether elite football should be played at all amid a second spike of the virus – or whether at the very least there should be mitigating circumstances for Covid-related cases.
“The sporting rules are… clear and say that if a team does not show up, they face disciplinary sanctions,” argued Agnelli.
“It is evident that the fact that a team does not reach a stadium to play a planned match does not give a great image of Italian football.”
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