NEIL LENNON could pull some of his players out of international duty after FIFA granted special dispensation to clubs who may have quarantine fears.
The Celtic manager is considering his options, saying that placing his players into a 14-day quarantine upon their return from playing with their national sides is out of the question.
That means the likes of Odsonne Edouard, who has been called up to the French under-21 side, may be told to sit the next international window out as he would be travelling to Georgia and Azerbaijan - countries currently on Scotland’s quarantine list.
When asked if it was feasible for his players to have two weeks in self-isolation, Lennon said: “Absolutely not, no.
“I only became aware of it on Monday night, so I’ll talk to our Covid officer after the game against Ferencvaros and take a view of whether the players will get special dispensation or whether they would have to be quarantined.
“This is something the club are going to have to have dialogue with relevant associations.
“We will have to discuss it after Wednesday night and prepare for that over the next few days before the Motherwell game, and have a chat to the individual players as well, and tell them it may or may not be able to happen.”
Meanwhile, Lennon has been reflecting upon his managerial experiences in Europe with Celtic, with tonight’s match against Ferencvaros his 54th time in charge of the team in European competition, nudging him into second place on the all-time list ahead of his own former manager, Martin O’Neill.
“It’s been wonderful and I’m looking forward to hopefully more games this year,” he said.
“We’ve had some great highs with a few sore ones along the way too.
“But it’s a great challenge as a coach to try and get the best out of the players when you come up against some of the best coaches, players and teams.
“So, I hopefully have many more ahead of me. But this is one of the most important one because it’s the next one.
“Going past Martin is nice too because I generally don’t beat him at anything, really. So, it’s a nice milestone to have talked about. Being alongside him in any capacity, really, is great.
“But that’s not at the forefront of my mind going into this game. Hopefully I can celebrate it afterwards with a proper result.”
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