The CFL announced on Tuesday that they have initiated a policy that will hopefully prevent any game cancelations due to COVID-19 issues.
The policy is as follows:
if a game cannot be played as scheduled because of COVID-19 issues, and it cannot be rescheduled:
• And one club is suffering from the COVID-19 issues, that club will forfeit the game and be assigned a loss while its opponent will be credited with a win by a score of 1-0.
• And both clubs are suffering from the COVID-19 issues, then both clubs will forfeit the game and be assigned a loss.
From CFL’s Oficial Press Release
Commissioner Randy Ambrosie had the following comments about the policy:
“Our goal is to ensure we have zero game cancellations due to issues caused by an outbreak of COVID-19 within our football operations. While this policy spells out what will happen if cancellations do occur, its main purpose is to encourage all of our players to get fully vaccinated in order to minimize the risk to our season and, most importantly, their health and safety.”
Randy Ambrosie
Included in the policy, and applicable to both above scenarios, if a team remains above the 85% threshold of at least partial vaccinations of its players, and a game has to be canceled, the team will receive their game checks.
On the other hand, if the team falls below 85%, no one on the team will be paid for that game.
As of Friday, the league has at least 79% of its players at least partially vaccinated, and announced Tuesday that 6,000 tests were administered to tier 1 employees including players, coaches, and support staff since July 15th, resulting in 0 positive tests.
“While these results are encouraging, we simply cannot be lulled into a very false sense of security, not when Delta and other variants are making their way through parts of Canada, and they have been attacking unvaccinated people in the U.S. and Canada.
“The most important thing everyone can do to protect themselves, and the most important thing our players can do to protect themselves and our season, is to get vaccinated.”
Randy Ambrosie
The cancellation policy also says Ambrosie has the ability to cancel any game he chooses, after consulting the CFL’s Chief Medical Officer, and it’s Union.
Furthermore, a game will be cancelled if any of the following conditions are met:
• Its playing is precluded by a decision by a government health authority.
• A team does not have 36 players to dress for the game.• A team does not have an individual ava
ilable to coach the offence and another individual to coach the defence.
• A team does not have a certified athletic therapist and sports medicine physician available for the game.
From league’s official press release
The league doesn’t forsee any issues at this point, but has chosen to be proactive, in case something does happen, and we lose what little hold we have on the pandemic.
