The organisers of the Champions Cup have urgently relaxed registration rules to help the clubs caught in travel and quarantine chaos following the rise of the omicron variant.
The move by European Professional Club Rugby came after the Scarlets had earlier urged them to reconsider their position on not rescheduling Champions Cup matches. Thirty two of Scarlets’ players are currently quarantining in Northern Ireland after travel rules changed while they and other clubs were in South Africa for the United Rugby Championship.
Teams will now have until Wednesday 8 December to register new players to feature in the opening round of the competition, as part of a raft of measures brought in to ensure player welfare and safety of all Champions Cup participants.
“Following consultation with the leagues and unions, it has been decided to extend the first registration date from last month to allow all participating clubs to supplement their squads with an unlimited number of previously unregistered players,” an EPCR statement read.
“While looking forward to another series of compelling pool stage fixtures, EPCR is mindful of how recent events have impacted on Cardiff Rugby, Munster Rugby, Scarlets and Zebre Parma in particular, and the tournament organiser would like to extend its best wishes to the players and staff who currently remain in South Africa, as well as to the players and staff who have been repatriated and are currently isolating.”
The Scarlets are due to play their tournament opener at Bristol on 11 December, a day after finishing their 10-day coronavirus quarantine period just outside Belfast. The Scarlets had already looked into borrowing non-registered players from fellow Welsh team the Ospreys to try to fulfil the fixture rather than forfeit the match, saying that if they have to play without the quarantining players they cannot fill four or five positions.
A Scarlets statement said: “With the Welsh Government ruling that the squad that travelled to South Africa has to see out the full 10-day isolation period at a quarantine hotel outside of Belfast, Scarlets are urging European tournament organisers EPCR to reconsider their position on the rescheduling of matches.”
Teams who are unable to fulfil European Cup fixtures face forfeiting the game under strict tournament rules, with competition organisers reinforcing in their statement on Thursday that there are no alternative weekends for them to be played on. Such a stance, though, drew criticism last season after a handful of coronavirus-related cancellations resulted in clubs responsible being handed 28-0 defeats.
On the Scarlets website, the club’s executive chairman, Simon Muderack, had also said: “If we were to play Bristol without the people who are in Ulster right now there are four or five positions where we physically do not have a body to fill that position.
“We are not coming out of quarantine until 10 December and a lot of these boys in Belfast haven’t played a game of rugby since 22 October. EPCR has got to look at player welfare here.
“Without the 32 players in quarantine, we’d have to play development players and academy players – some of them just out of school in their first season of senior rugby – as well as semi-pro players, who juggle their rugby commitments with full-time work and put them up against a quality side like Bristol. That wouldn’t be good for the integrity of the competition or those individuals.”
Muderack was adamant the Scarlets should have been granted a “sporting exemption” to train in Northern Ireland while the squad remained in isolation. He said players were allowed to have only a short daily walk around the hotel car park and the risk of injury to unprepared players could be “catastrophic for careers”.
“None of us had any idea that this situation was going to occur, and that South Africa was going to be put on the red list,” Muderack said. “The URC is a new league and what we are trying to do is support the league’s aspirations by sending our very best available team to South Africa to perform as best as we can. That’s us doing the right thing by the league and rugby.
“For us to get penalised for that really doesn’t sit very well with me and we need to find a fair solution, because forfeiting the game for something that was out of our control isn’t right. Ideally, we would have been granted a sporting exemption which has been done in the past so that the team, whilst remaining in isolation, could have continued to train and prepare for upcoming fixtures”
The Ospreys head coach, Toby Booth, said they had been contacted by the Scarlets asking if they had any players available. “They’ve asked for seven or eight,” Booth said at a press conference for the Ospreys’ URC home game with Ulster. “We’re willing to help out because it’s important we see the bigger picture here. It will suit us giving people opportunities to play in a prestigious game.”
Cardiff’s travelling party of 42 players and staff had been due to fly out of Cape Town on Thursday after making a similar trip to South Africa. All of that group have returned negative coronavirus tests, but an additional six individuals who tested positive have been transferred to a South African quarantine hotel.
However, Cardiff wrote on their Twitter account on Thursday: “We can confirm that due to restrictions on inbound flights to the UK and the withdrawal of a landing slot, we were unable to take off this morning. We now plan to depart Cape Town tomorrow morning. Thank you for all of your support.”
The 10-day period of quarantine on arrival in the UK – the party are set to serve their isolation spell in England – has put their opening Champions Cup games against Toulouse and Harlequins in jeopardy. But their director of rugby, Dai Young, said Cardiff will “do everything in our power” to fulfil those fixtures.