DAlready canceled at the varsity and youth levels, the college football season, and every other level that was still in action, just took another hit in the flanks.
Thursday noon, the directors of student services at CEGEPs met to exchange information and begin thinking about whether or not to continue the college sports season this fall.
A decision is expected Monday, through their sectoral committee.
Already, several games have been canceled this weekend, a scenario similar to that of the past weekend.
The main problem with the new 25-member rule is.
A sports team cannot have more than 25 participants on a platform for its training, but this rule no longer applies for a match between two teams.
Under these conditions, Football Quebec published a press release on Thursday evening, announcing the end of all its activities.
It can be read that “Football Quebec lacks clear and applicable directives to the performance of football to ensure compliance with the instructions in connection with the red color code presented by health and government authorities”.
“People are not happy, I understand them, and I am no happier than them”, first indicated the general manager of Football Quebec, Mathieu Joyal.
“We had to take a stand. We had a lot of discussions this week with the DSLAP (Sports, Leisure and Physical Activity Directorate), there are still a lot of gray areas. The government mentioned on September 18, when Public Health issued these recommendations about player thresholds set at 25, that it was the federation that had the last word. However, some municipalities, even in the yellow zone, do not recognize the legitimacy of the Federation’s instructions. It becomes very complex to manage, ”said the CEO of Football Quebec.
“The university has no season, the college seems to be moving in this direction, even if it is not yet official, with all the games canceled so far. Vanier, for example, simply canceled his season. We do not have the answers and the certainties that we need. “
“During his press briefing today (Thursday), Dr Arruda mentioned that the sports decisions would be announced on Monday. As we were criticized by some of our members for lacking caution, at a certain time, in August, that we had moved too quickly, that we did not have the authority and the knowledge to put in place a protocol for returning to the game, this time, we decided to play it safe, ”insisted Mathieu Joyal.
“People need to understand that we are putting our activities on hold while we have clear guidelines, which are specific to our sport. The threshold of 25 players causes us a lot of headaches. In a football training, there are 40 young people. Even a full team cannot train together, as it is currently worded. But two complete teams, to play a match, that’s different. “
“To prepare well for a game, it takes periods of opposition, in training. We denounce the number of concussions in our sport, but if you are poorly prepared, and you show up for a match, where the intensity is much higher than that of training, without having had a period of opposition , there is an inconsistency that comes into play in terms of security, ”continued Mathieu Joyal.
Cancellation of matches
In Estrie, the Volunteers of Cégep de Sherbrooke were to receive the Laureates of Saint-Hyacinthe on Friday evening in Sherbrooke, while the Cougars of Collège Champlain were to visit the Giants of Saint-Jean on Saturday.
“We don’t do it out of heart, at all. It causes us headaches. My mailbox is filling up, and people writing to us, it’s not to say thank you, you are making a good decision. That’s correct, we knew where we were going with this, our board of directors is aware. Our goal is to put football on the pitch since day one. We are not the Quebec Anti-Football Federation. Every gesture we make, every question we ask, is so that young people can play. “
“There we are at an impasse. It is complex to respect the standards that we do not even understand all at present. “
In football, in the first division, seven of the twenty scheduled matches have already been canceled. In the second division, it’s eight out of nineteen. Eight out of 12 games were called off in Division 3.
