Ukraine team doctor Artur Hlushchenko: The Swiss refused to conduct testing on the matchday

20.11.2020 15:40

Photo by Yevhen Kraws

The chief doctor of the national team of Ukraine Artur Hlushchenko commented on the situation that arose around the canceled UEFA Nations league match Switzerland - Ukraine.

- Unlike our colleagues from Germany, who showed readiness to solve any issues that arose in the process of organizing the match with their team and performed their work at the highest level, including in the context of medical protocol, in Switzerland we do not saw the same treatment. What I mean is that after PCR testing revealed five infected people in the Ukrainian delegation in Leipzig, the German Football Association conducted an additional research on the matchday. To do this, German colleagues brought their mobile laboratory, at 13.00 we passed the tests, receiving the results three hours later. They were all negative, and the game took place. As for the Swiss, they refused to conduct testing on the matchday, unequivocally appointing it for the evening before the match - November 16.

— What is the advantage of testing on the matchday?

- The fact that it is clearly known who is currently healthy in the team and who is not. After all, a lot can happen overnight. However, the Lucerne chief sanitary doctor was unappealable: "if there is at least one infected in your or in the Swiss national team, the game will not be held". Frankly, I would like to see if such a decision would have been made if there had been infected in the Swiss team and not in ours. One of our side, Ruslan Malinovskyi, became infected and had a fever immediately after arriving in Switzerland. We immediately isolated him in the room, and he no longer contacted the team. However, all these arguments did not affect the sanitary doctor. He believed that we posed a risk of infection to others.

— As for Kryvtsov and Moraes, who had previously contracted COVID-19, why did their tests give positive results?

- These results were false positive. It happens that the dead cells of the virus may indicate positive results. However, this does not mean that they are re-infected. After the boys fell ill, we issued special UEFA certificates confirming that they had already overcome the infection and could be admitted to the game. This document was accepted, by the way, by the mentioned sanitary doctor, who confirmed that the boys can move freely. They are quite healthy and, by the way, after returning to Ukraine they have already trained at the club. We also performed an antibody test that confirmed that they had overtaken the illness. As well as physical training coach Ivan Bashtovyi, who did not have a certificate for the game, because he was not a player.

— Let's go back to the pre-match training. Despite the request of the national team of Ukraine, the Swiss conducted testing just before leaving the hotel for training. What inconveniences did this create for the team?

- Before training, masseurs "rub" the players' muscles, preparing them for loads to avoid injuries during the match, the probability of which is much higher if the muscles are not warmed up. So, instead of doing this procedure 10-15 minutes before going out on the pitch, we had to finish it an hour before training so that the players could still have time to pass the test and take the bus to the stadium. Due to the fact that it is late autumn and cold outside, such a time difference in the procedure increases the risk of injury. The players, as well as everyone, have natural physiological needs, but to go to the locker room or toilet, and in general to any other room in the stadium was forbidden.

A strange decision and an even weirder situation in general, which happened before the planned match of one of the most prestigious UEFA tournaments. This is especially absurd against the background of the fact that at the same time restaurants and other establishments for visitors in Lucerne were open, where you can safely go without prior testing for COVID-19. But for the local chief sanitary doctor, our footballers, who had previously received negative test results, posed a greater danger. Of course, such nuances to some extent affected the general mood. However, the guys proved to be real fighters, no one complained, everyone worked professionally.