State over footy: SA Chief Medical Officer responds to AFL fans as quarantine measures remain

South Australia’s Chief Medical Officer says officials ‘agonised’ over the decision but opted it was too soon to allow a ‘FIFO’ model.

Adelaide Crows players (pictured) are set to relocate ahead of the AFL season relaunch. Picture: AAP

South Australia’s Chief Medical Officer has responded to the anger and disappointment of AFL fans in refusing to modify the state’s tight quarantine measures, saying she understood people were frustrated but that she did not want to compromise public health and safety.

Professor Nicola Spurrier said the state government and her medical advisors had “agonised” over the decision but ultimately believed that it was too soon to relax the 14-day quarantine restrictions to allow SA’s two clubs to participate in the AFL’s preferred “fly-in, fly-out” model to restart the 2020 season.

Instead, the Crows and Port Adelaide will now have to fly into Victoria and Queensland and remain there when the season resumes.

“We agonised over this … we looked at every which way how we would be able to not require a large group, not just the players but the other people you would need with a football team, and we really felt that it was not possible to do it safely in South Australia without having that two week quarantine,” she told Radio FiveAA.

“We just felt like it was an unacceptable risk.”

Dr Spurrier confirmed that a key reason in SA’s thinking was that the state has recorded just one new case of COVID-19 infection in just three weeks, while Victoria has had the highest rate of cases in Australia for several days.

On that basis she was not prepared to let the two AFL clubs fly in and out of Adelaide to compete in Victoria without doing a full fortnight’s quarantine after leaving and returning to SA.

She said she understood that this would now be hard for Crows and Port players and their families as they would have no choice but to relocate to Victoria or possibly Queensland depending on the final “hub” model adopted by the AFL.

SA’s position is in line with Western Australia’s with Premier Mark McGowan also refusing to allow fly-in, fly-out matches for the state’s two WA teams.

Prof Spurrier said the players and club officials from Port and the Crows would have to stay in the eastern states until SA border restrictions and quarantine requirements were lifted.

“It is really going to be when we relax the restrictions,” she said.

Port Adelaide players are likely to move to Queensland. Picture: AAP

“Four or five weeks ago I wouldn’t have predicted we would do so well in South Australia … so let’s see how we go in the eastern states.”

The two clubs are now preparing to relocate to the eastern states with the Crows heading to Victoria and Port Adelaide likely to go to Queensland.

Crows premiership player and club board member Mark Ricciuto said on his Triple M Breakfast Show today that he believed the Crows would head to Victoria almost immediately.

“The Adelaide Football Club will be preparing to play in hubs outside of Adelaide for pre-the games starting and maybe up to the first five weeks of the footy season so they can get some certainty in the program for the AFL,” he said.