Steve Clarke says clubs can’t stop players playing for their countries; Celtic fans have been angry this week

Add as preferred source on Google

Scotland manager Steve Clarke has stated that clubs can’t stop players from playing with their country.

Celtic have been struck with three positive cases (Odsonne Edouard, Nir Bitton, Hatem Elhamed) since the international break started, whilst one of their others in Ryan Christie has been forced to self-isolate under the close contact rule.

Celtic released a statement after Elhamed’s positive test, stating that they are sure that wider discussions will take place surrounding international football and clubs’ obligations to let their players go.

But Clarke doesn’t believe that will be possible as he reiterated the current ruling.

As quoted by the Scottish Sun, Clarke said: “I don’t think they are able to do that, unless there’s quarantine issues when the player goes to a country, or comes into a country.

“So the fact we can put together the bubble that everyone speaks about in camp, I don’t think clubs have got grounds to stop players coming. I would point to the fact that even though we’ve had one incident in the camp, our protocols work.

“All the clubs will be nervous about it when their players go away in international duty. But they’ll be nervous about their players in the house as well.”

A repeat next month can’t happen

You can’t really blame Clarke for defending the idea of clubs having to let their players go. After all, if they were able to halt it, the chances are he would be forced to work with a massively reduced squad and his chances of qualifying for Euro 2020 would be in tatters.

But you have to remember who these players work for. There should be no club vs country debate. If there is a bigger danger to players leaving their clubs, which we’ve seen is the case this month, then clubs should be able to decide whether they can leave.

Yes, this may cause some heated debates with the players involved. After all, who doesn’t want to go and represent their country and try to qualify for the next major international competition? But in saying that, these are special times, and new rules simply must come into play here.

The Celtic supporters have been absolutely furious this month with the four cases that have ruled out some key players from this weekend’s derby. But that will be an opinion that is shared across the country and likely across Europe.

There’s another international break to come next month. Surely, regardless of who you support, you would have to agree that we can’t just have the status quo happen again.

Hopefully, Celtic’s prediction of talks over international football will happen after the current break. But given UEFA and FIFA’s love of it, it all feels a bit too optimistic.

In other news, Rangers could reportedly be without five key stars this weekend.