According to media reports such as The Athletic and Liverpool Echo, a number of clubs have asked the English Football League (EFL) to thoroughly investigate Liverpool's false positive cases, resulting in the postponement of the Premier League Cup semi-final.
According to the original schedule, the first leg of the Abba League Cup semi-final between Arsenal and Liverpool is scheduled to take place at 3:45am at Emirates Stadium in London on 7 January.
But on 5 January, two days before the game began, Liverpool applied to the EFL to postpone the game, citing a rapid increase in positive cases within the team and the closure of the first-team base.
The EFL officially accepted Liverpool's extension request, saying in a statement: "After a comprehensive review of the circumstances involved, the league accepted Liverpool's request. Although this is a situation that everyone does not want to see, it is the only option, as Liverpool want to mitigate the risk of further infection of the team and staff, while ensuring that there is no travel from Liverpool to London, thus protecting public health. ”
However, Klopp said in an interview with the BBC on 9 January that with the exception of right-back Arnold, who was determined to be positive, everyone else was actually "false positives" and had not actually contracted the coronavirus.
Klopp revealed the "false positives" after the FA Cup 4-1 Shrewsbury match last Sunday: "Last week we did have a false positive about covid-19 and found a lot of false positives, but our reporting behavior was in full compliance with the rules and regulations, so all the false positive players did not play. The only player who is truly positive is Arnold and the rest are false positives. ”
After the scumbag's interview was reported, the EFL received complaints from a number of clubs that had been postponed to liverpool. They want to find out when Liverpool discovered the information. Some clubs suspect that Liverpool have a premeditated postponement, and there are not many players infected with the new crown in the team, but the purpose of postponing the game is achieved by falsely reporting positive cases.
The EFL is now under pressure from other clubs to launch a thorough investigation into the incident and face severe penalties if it is found that Liverpool failed to finish the game without justification.
According to sources, Liverpool conducted at least two rounds of testing before the match was postponed. The first round was tested using a side-flow device (LFD) and showed some positive cases. A second round of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing by an independent laboratory also showed some more positive cases.
But a third round of testing after the scheduled first leg against Arsenal showed that the "positive cases" were actually negative, with only Arnold alone being positive. When asked to explain why the results were not announced at the time, Liverpool have not commented so far.
Given that the COVID-19 testing and follow-up analysis given by the UK Health Department (NHS) shows that the estimated specificity of the LFD test is at least 99.97%. Two consecutive "false positive" results are considered highly unlikely.
Clubs such as Arsenal and Leeds United, which have been affected by Liverpool's postponement, hope that the governing body can clarify under what circumstances the game can be postponed and what kind of situation cannot be postponed. And this rule should apply to all teams.