October 6 – As a second spike of Covid-19 threatens to sweep through Europe, Xherdan Shaqiri has become the third Liverpool player to test positive in the space of a week.
The Swiss football association has confirmed that Shaqiri returned the positive test after joining up with the Swiss squad for upcoming games against Croatia, Spain and Germany
The 28-year-old joins Sadio Mane and new signing Thiago Alcantaro on the positive list, the latest in a worrying trend of fresh cases in English football.
The three new three positive tests from the same club seems likely to fuel fears of the virus spreading wider, with many Liverpool players having linked up with their countries across the world.
Earlier this month, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp expressed his concern about releaseing players to international duty during the pandemic.
“I don’t want to sound disrespectful about how other countries are doing it but this is the place that we know and we know how we are dealing with it,” said Klopp.
The Premier League confirmed on Monday that nine new positive results were returned in the latest round of testing, but it is unconfirmed whether Shaqiri was included in that total.
Contact the writer of this story at andrew.warshaw@insideworldfootball.com