Wednesday, we were playing. But Thursday, we don’t play anymore! The match between the French rugby team and Scotland, scheduled for Sunday February 28 at the Stade de France, as part of the third day of the Six Nations Tournament, will not take place.
While it had been maintained on Wednesday by the organizing committee of the Tournament, a decision was taken on Thursday by the organizers to postpone it due to the appearance of an additional case of Covid among the Blues, have indicated to the “World” several sources, confirming the information given in the middle of the day by France Télévisions, the official broadcaster of the Tournament matches.
Meeting on Thursday to review the situation in the French camp, the Six Nations Testing Oversight Group “Unanimously recommended the postponement of the France-Scotland match”, according to a press release.
The new date on which the match could take place has not yet been revealed. “We are working on the postponement date for this match and will communicate it in due course”, completes the instance.
According to our information, the meeting would not be rescheduled for the weekend of March 6 and 7, yet left free by the Tournament. This date is judged “Too close to be sure” that everything has been overhauled in terms of health, according to a source close to the discussions.
An inquiry requested
The decision to maintain the match on Wednesday was taken after consideration of the “Latest test results [du Covid] of the French team “, in which fifteen contaminations had been recorded in less than a week – including those of the coach, Fabien Galthié, or of the captain and third row, Charles Ollivon, and of the scrum half Antoine Dupont.
No new case of Covid-19 had been detected in the previous forty-eight hours in the French ranks (the PCR tests carried out Tuesday evening were negative).
But the new tests carried out Wednesday evening on the workforce of the Blues at large (players and management) led to the identification of an additional case. A player, whose identity has not been specified, has tested positive for Covid-19, announced Thursday morning, the French Rugby Federation (FFR).
“Following the RT-PCR tests carried out this Wednesday, February 24 in the evening and the appearance of a positive case within the squad of players, the FFR medical committee met this morning and decided to suspend training today ”, explained the FFR in a statement.
All the players approached for the France-Scotland match having resumed training on Wednesday, this made them all contact cases.
Given this explosion in the number of cases within the French rugby team, the Minister for Sports, Roxana Maracineanu, on Wednesday evening asked the FFR to initiate an investigation into the implementation and compliance with the protocol. health which had been validated by the authorities before the tournament. The results of this investigation must be submitted within eight days.
The Ministry of Solidarity and Health was also requested “In order to understand how the chain of contamination was formed” within the French team and in the health bubble put in place.
“Unjustified accusations”
Asked Thursday morning on Franceinfo – but before the announcement of a new case and before the decision to postpone – Bernard Laporte, the president of the FFR, had said “Relieved” to be able to play against Scotland: “When you like the competition and the Six Nations Tournament at that time, you are delighted that it can be played out.”
As for the request for an internal investigation formulated by the government, and the possibility that the coach Fabien Galthié, who was one of the first infected, may have violated the safety rules, Mr. Laporte stressed that he “Is always difficult to know the origin”.
Fabien Galthié had assured for his part to the team, Tuesday night, that “All [ses] actions [avaient été] in accordance with sanitary protocol. I do not understand these unwarranted accusations. “
“I would really like to know if someone is at fault or not, assured Bernard Laporte. We will do it [l’enquête] ourselves. We want to know how we got there. There is a very strict protocol. When we see that the President of the Republic has been contaminated, while his protocol must be very strict, it shows how hard the protocol is to master. I believe more in this than anything else. “
