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Τhe COVID-19 pandemic had so much affected the football season, that many teams celebrated a championship title earlier than expected or didn’t celebrate at all, as the season has been declared void. Saudi Arabian giants Al Hilal is the first club all over the world that has been kicked out of a competition because of a series of positive coronavirus tests. The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) stated that the reigning champions wouldn’t be able to defend their title for the current season, as they’ve been eliminated in the group phase, despite being first in the group table! The AFC stated that “All matches played by Al Hilal, who named only 11 players, are considered null and void”, so they were relegated to the last place of the group.
What happened? On Thursday, Al Hilal failed to name a squad of minimum 13 players following a series of positive tests. They have named a nine-starter squad (a goalkeeper and eight outfield players) and two more goalkeepers were named as substitutes to face UAE club Shabab Al Ahli Dubai. According to AFC regulation a club must have mimimum 13 fit players to start an international tie, so they not only lost the match in question, but have been ruled out of the competition.
The bizarre of this decision is that Al Hilal has caught up to play five out of six group games and they’ve grabbed 11 points, which secured their presence in the 2nd round, the knock-out phase. Al Hilal played Iran’s Shahr Khodro three days ago despite 15 of their players testing positive for coronavirus, after Asia’s football body refused to postpone the game.
Competition regulations allowed for 35 players to be registered by each club, but Al Hilal registered 30 of which only 27 travelled to Doha at the beginning of the competition. Al Hilal and the Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) had asked for the postponement of the match against Shabab Al Ahli Dubai, citing an AFC rule allowing for a delay “in exceptional circumstances”. But their request was turned down as a postponement “would have a huge negative impact on the current match schedule of the AFC Champions League. Simply, the AFC preferred to kick out one of the major title contenders than mess up the schedule one more time, as the whole group phase of the AFC Champions League west part is being held in Qatar.
