Report: Lions tour on verge of cancellation
The British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa is now in serious danger of not going ahead this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the Daily Mail, a spike in COVID-19 numbers and the emergence of new strains of the virus in South Africa and the UK has meant that contingency planning has been fast-tracked.
It is believed that rugby bosses were going to wait until March to hold discussions on whether the series will go ahead. However, according to the Daily Mail’s report, a decision might now be made at the end of January.
While a vaccine has been rolled out in the UK, the same cannot be said for South Africa with the country’s citizens still months away from getting one.
Around 30 000 travelling fans expected for the series and it has been previously made clear that the event will not go ahead without fans, which throws another spanner in the works.
One of the options to solve the dilemma is to postpone the series to the same window in 2022. However, Wales are scheduled to visit South Africa during that period, while England will be travelling to Australia.
Ireland are also scheduled to visit New Zealand during that window. There is also the option of cancelling the series, but officials are trying to avoid that at all costs.
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Wow, have to go but can’t leave without saying these thoughts. And carlos might jump in here, but going through the repercussions I had the thought that sole nation representatives would see this tournament as a huge boon. The prestige alone by provide a huge incentive for nations like Argentina to place a fully international club side into one of these tournaments (namely Super Rugby). I don’t know about the money side but if a team like the Jaguares was on the fence about returning I could see this entry as deciding the deal (at least for make up of that side with its eligibility criteria etc). Same goes for Fiji, and the Drua, if there can be found money to invest in bringing more internationals into the side. It’s great work from those involved in European rugby to sacrifice their finals, or more accurately, to open there finals upto 8 other world teams. It creates a great niche and can be used by other parties to add further improvements to the game. Huge change from the way things in the past have stalled. I did not even know that about the French game. Can we not then, for all the posters out there that don’t want to follow NZ and make the game more aerobic, now make a clear decision around with more injuries occur the more tired an athlete is? If France doesn’t have less injuries, then that puts paid to that complaint, and we just need to find out if it is actually more dangerous having ‘bigger’ athletes or not. How long have they had this rule?
Go to commentsHaha he does the exact opposite of what you’d expect any receiver to do, Brilliant!
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