Publications
Partners
Dr Mahlane Phalane is confident in his proposed plan to finish the 2019/20 Premier Soccer League season using a large scale "player camp".
The spread of Covid-19 in South Africa has threatened the completion of the current PSL campaign, with no clear date as to when play can safely resume.
A number of options have been put forward to the country's footballing bodies as to how best to move forward.
The option of playing behind closed doors at limited venues, as well as a World Cup round-robin competition are two ideas to be considered.
But Phalane wants to see all 16 PSL teams and 16 First Division team based in a camp-style environment, in Gauteng, where all players, staff and logistics personnel would be housed.
Speaking to IOL, the sports doctor said: "We've proposed that as the brainchild. We've sent the proposal to SAFA and the PSL as they are the controlling bodies of football in the country.
"They've now constituted a joint task team to deal with that, but for our part, the medical and scientific side, we've made that proposal to them.
"We are saying in the proposal that if the rules and regulations in the proposal were to be followed to a T, we'll be creating a situation whereby all the participants in football will actually be on level 1 or below."
He added: "In our proposal, it will take approximately 21 days before we can resume football. This comes from a number of reasons. Firstly, we'll check the biological side of a person where we are saying the players should be in self-isolation for 14 days. We all know what happened at Pirates (where midfielder Ben Motshwari tested positive for Covid-19).
"During the 14 days, we'll also be aware of their physical fitness, considering there might be challenges here and there because they've been off for months. After 14 days, and on day 21, we'll then test them again and that's when we'll be able to put them in a camp, but with restricted measures."
- TEAMtalk media
