The Swiss Football Association (ASF) have confirmed in a statement that Manuel Akanji contracting the Coronavirus cannot be attributed to Liverpool ace Xherdan Shaqiri, who tested positive recently.
Thankfully the Swiss FA report that Akanji is not showing any symptoms of the virus, it’s added that Switzerland’s clash with Croatia tonight will still go ahead after discussions with health authorities.
The ASF add that they were ‘verbally informed’ that Shaqiri’s positive result is ‘probably’ due to a previous infection, meaning that the 28-year-old is not contagious, this outcome came about after an additional blood test confirmed presence of antibodies.
Switzerland announced that Shaqiri tested positive yesterday morning, with the attacking midfielder then going into self-isolation.
Xherdan Shaqiri ist positiv auf Covid-19 getestet worden. In Absprache mit der Gesundheitsbehörde befindet er sich in Isolation. https://t.co/TW8M1nobvP pic.twitter.com/vOjkqmD7Gz
— ?? Nati (@SFV_ASF) October 6, 2020
Shaqiri became the third Liverpool player within a week to test positive for Covid-19 after teammates Thiago Alcantara and Sadio Mane.
The Swiss FA’s initial update does raise a concern though, Shaqiri obviously must have tested negative in all of the Premier League’s tests, but somehow returned a positive result in the test used by the Swiss FA.
The use of an antibodies tests has cleared up the situation, but perhaps more universal testing measures are needed in football.