Holders France begin their defence of the World Cup this week as European qualifying for the 2022 finals in Qatar gets underway against a backdrop of confusion and chaos over the release of players in a worrying health context across the continent.
While this month’s scheduled qualifiers in South America were called off and most matches in Asia were postponed, players in Europe are having to work their way around travel restrictions in order to join up with national teams.
FIFA’s decision to relax rules forcing clubs to release players during an international window remains in place until the end of April, with world football’s governing body unable to ignore the wider context of the Covid-19 crisis.
The consequences of that have largely been confusion and plenty of backtracking by clubs and authorities in recent days.