FIFA Suspends Brazilian Premier League Players at Request of Brazilian FA

The Premier League is at odds with the Brazilian Football Association and FIFA. In retribution for the Premier League not releasing players to play in red-listed countries, FIFA and the Brazilian FA are seeking to suspend players for five days for following their club’s requests to skip international duty.

FIFA is set to invoke the five-day ruling, at the request of the Brazilian Football Association, that will prevent the Premier League players who were blocked from playing for Brazil over this past week’s international break, from participating in any club games for five days.

If no resolution can be agreed to, the teams could risk forfeiting any games where the banned players feature. The players the Brazilian FA has asked FIFA to ban are the Liverpool trio of Alisson, Fabinho, and Roberto Firmino, the Manchester City duo of Ederson and Gabriel Jesus, Leed’s Raphinha, Chelsea’s Thiago Silva, and Manchester United’s Fred.

The ban applies not just to Premier League games, but Champions League games as well, with the group stage set to start this mid-week.

The move is a response to Premier League clubs unanimously deciding “not to release players for international matches played in red-list countries next month,” as their re-entry into England would require a 10-day hotel quarantine period, which would cause them to miss games and training. The Brazilian FA appears to have employed FIFA and the five-day ruling largely out of spite.

As they did not ask FIFA to impose the five-day ruling on Everton’s Richarlison due to the friendly nature between the club and the FA for allowing Richarlison to play in both the Copa America and the Olympics this summer.

The Premier League clubs are working to resolve the issue, and believe there is a chance that their star Brazilians will be able to feature this weekend. Premier League clubs believe FIFA has no real basis in enforcement due to the extraordinary circumstances that a global pandemic creates. Furthering the clubs’ anger towards FIFA, is that FIFA had introduced temporary release exceptions for players who faced quarantine restrictions, but failed to continue that policy earlier this year.

At the moment, the Premier League is at odds with not only FIFA and the Brazilian FA, but the FA’s of Chile, Mexico, and Paraguay have also asked FIFA to invoke the five-day ruling. If no resolution between the parties can be made, star players missing time through quarantine or suspension could be the norm this season.