Very close to three quarters of the total players from the two biggest leagues in Portuguese football are vaccinated against Covid-19. According to the Portuguese Professional Football League, which in July drew up a vaccination plan to be applied to the 34 sports societies, in line with the Directorate-General for Health, 73.7 percent of the League and League 2 footballers are already inoculated.
The first to have the players protected were the clubs registered in the UEFA competitions and those who refused to take the vaccine still have to undergo a negative PCR test before each game. After ten rounds in the two levels, the League was only forced to postpone the match between Académica and Estrela, of the 4th round of Liga 2, due to a series of cases of infection at the Amadora club.
Vaccination as an advice rather than a duty in sport was normalized after the Olympic Games, which took place in Tokyo – from 23 July to 8 August, a year later than planned precisely because of the pandemic – according to the recommendation of the International Olympic Committee, after signing a memorandum of understanding with Pfizer and BioNTech laboratories to provide vaccines to athletes and members of participating delegations.
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