The Covid-19 pandemic continues to disrupt the footballing season, especially with the Omicron variant now rapidly spreading across the UK and beyond.
Several Premier League games have been called off due to clubs experiencing outbreaks of the virus, and with the festive period run-in that accounts for the busiest time of the season, concerns have grown about the health and safety of the players and staff.
GOAL has what you need to know about the rules for postponing matches because of Covid-19.
What are the rules for postponing games due to Covid-19?
According to the Premier League's handbook, a match can be postponed when a club is unable to field 14 players.
This minimum, however, includes academy and reserve players. Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel has called up at least 12 academy players to his squad following a Covid-19 outbreak within the London club.
The rules state: "Permission will not be granted to postpone a league match where the applicant club has 14 or more players listed on its squad list available."
The Premier League handbook also states that each request for postponement will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and will "only permit the rearrangement or postponement of a league match in exceptional circumstances".
So, if a club has 14 or more players in their squad list available to play, they will not be granted a postponement.
In a later statement, the Premier League continued to say that it would "assess a number of factors, including the ability of a club to field a team; the status, severity and potential impact of the Covid-19 outbreak at the club; and the ability of the players to safely prepare for and play the match.
"The Board must also consider the wider risks to the opposition and other people the club may come into contact with."
What have Premier League managers said?
Tuchel has been particularly vocal with his frustration at being forced to continue playing fixtures despite a large number of his players and staff testing positive for Covid-19.
Chelsea's request to have their game against Wolves on December 19 postponed due to a Covid-19 outbreeak was denied by the Premier League.
Tuchel stated in a press conference: "We have the schedule. I can understand it's not easy to postpone games. But for isolated situations like ours, in the last match, we had our concerns, and we thought we had a strong case. So I shared my thoughts with everybody and we accept the situation.
"We accepted the challenge when we arrived at Wolverhampton with 14 players. And out of these 14 players with a lot of them we took a huge risk. And in general we did not feel fully safe, those involved in the trip. But apart from that we accepted the challenge and and we will accept the next challenge. It will not get easier because these guys are out, but that's it."
How many games have been called off due to Covid-19?
Tottenham's clash against Brighton, originally due to be played on December 12, was called off due to the North London club having an outbreak of the virus.
Brentford vs Man Utd on December 14 was also called off due to the Red Devils' players and staff returning a high number of positive results.
Leicester vs Tottenham, Southampton vs Brentford, Watford vs Crystal Palace and West Ham vs Norwich are among the other games that were later cancelled due to Covid-19 outbreaks.
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