The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Just when you thought it couldn’t get Crazier – this was more like a hoax
Scottish FA chief executive Ian Maxwell admitted he was stunned when the Czech Republic announced they would be unable to fulfil their fixture against Scotland.
The Czech FA announced on Friday that tonight’s Nations League encounter in Olomouc was off due to a coronavirus outbreak in the Czech camp.
Czech players Tomas
Soucek and Patrick Schick were selfisolating after coming into contact with a backroom member of staff who tested positive for the virus. That led the Czech FA to announce shortly after their 3-1 win in Slovakia on Friday that they would not be able to raise a team to face Scotland.
But following discussion with Uefa, tonight’s match will go ahead with the Czech side made up of a completely new squad and management team.
Maxwell said: “I got home on Friday night and I was thinking about the match and thinking about the preparations for Monday and obviously the news came through from the Czech FA’s tweet.
“I sent it on to three or four at the very top of Uefa and got a range of ‘Is this a joke?’ and ‘Is this for real?’ replies, because they had heard nothing either. It’s incredible.
“To be honest I’ve not heard from anybody officially at the Czech FA. I’ve not spoken to anybody.
“Frank Reilly, our match manager, has been speaking to his equivalent in terms of organising the game, but I’ve not spoken with my counterpart. I
don’t think it’s the right way to deal with things in these circumstances and I’d have liked the communication lines to be a bit more open.
“From a Uefa perspective they spoke to the Czech FA just to understand it wasn’t a hoax and it wasn’t a fake Twitter account, because I think it’s fair to say that just when you think 2020 can’t get any crazier, something like this happens. For a visiting team to hear that a game is off via Twitter is unacceptable.”
The Czech FA president Martin Malik admitted it has been a “chaotic” period.
He said: “I admit that on Friday night I couldn’t see any way the game against Scotland could be played and that’s why we released the statement.
“Once Uefa became involved, we worked together to come up with solutions to many problems. It also became clear Monday was the only available date to play this game.
“If the game didn’t take place, we would have forfeited the match and probably suffered economic sanctions.
“The squad and staff from Friday are in quarantine and we had to work fast to get new players and coaches. Thankfully, Uefa accommodated us by extending the deadline for submitting our list to Saturday at midnight.
“I understand the players from the original squad are angry about what happened.
“We had to explain to the squad we had no alternative but to disband them and send them home.”