Covid: Players are not the vaccination priority, says Infantino

February 2 – Footballers should not jump the queue and be vaccinated before key health workers according to FIFA president Gianni Infantino.

Launching a joint campaign with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to promote fair access to vaccines, Infantino said there was no reason players should automatically get priority.

“The priority for the vaccines is, of course, the people at risk and for health workers. This is very clear in our mind. I don’t consider, we don’t consider, football players as a priority group in this respect,” Infantino told a news conference.

Some countries have begun vaccinating athletes or plan to inoculate them ahead of the Olympic Games, due to be held in Tokyo from July 23.

“Of course for safety reasons, in the context of the months to come, in the context of international competitions and travel, vaccination might be recommended at some point and the Olympic Games are, of course, only in the summer,” Infantino added

“But all this will happen, of course, respecting the established order of distribution. There are people who are at risk and these people should have priority of course and it is not football players or officials.”

Asked if FIFA expected stadiums to be full when the World Cup takes place in Qatar in November 2022, Infantino was in no doubt.

“Yes we must have this. COVID will be defeated by then. If in two years’ time we are not there yet, we will all have a bigger problem than a World Cup.”

In the meantime, all health protocols will be strictly observed, he said, with 135 teams due to play World Cup qualifiers next month alone.

“It is always a balance that we have to take but we need to respect the decisions of governments … the situation is very, very different all over the world.

“We will monitor the situation in the coming weeks, we can see the situation is evolving week by week.

“The international games will be held in March; by then we will assess the situation and see where we can play and in what conditions but we will certainly not take any risks with the health of anyone when we play football.”

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