Liverpool could reportedly be handed a major boost to their Premier League title hopes as this year’s edition of the Africa Cup of Nations is in doubt.
The Reds had looked set to lose both Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane for an extended period over the winter, but it now looks like the competition might not happen at all.
According to RMC Sport in the tweet below, nothing has yet been decided, but it is at least being considered that AFCON 2022 could be postponed, presumably due to high cases of coronavirus in various parts of Africa at the moment, with the new Omicron variant recently arising in South Africa and Botswana…
? Selon nos informations, la CAN pourrait annoncer une annulation de l’édition 2022 au Cameroun. La réflexion est en tout cas engagée.
— RMC Sport (@RMCsport) December 15, 2021
It’s slightly questionable, however, if it really makes much sense to be weighing up this option now, as the new Covid variant has also become widespread in other parts of the world.
It’s thought that there are already thousands of cases of Omicron in the UK, while it’s also been picked up in Germany, Denmark, Norway and other parts of Europe, as well as the USA.
Having said that, it might generally be wise to avoid large amounts of travel at the moment, with squads being together on flights or in training camps likely to lead to more spread of the virus.
This has already been shown to be the case as the Premier League announced a record-high 42 positive test results among players and staff for the most recent round of testing.
Tottenham had a particularly big outbreak recently, as have Manchester United, with both clubs seeing recent fixtures cancelled because of these high infection rates.
Liverpool fans will surely be watching this all with interest as it could be huge for their title hopes if they can avoid losing two of their most important players for an extended period.