After feeling they might be out of the woods, it is evident football clubs are set for another chaotic experience with Covid-19.
The rapid spreading of the Omicron variant has seen clubs in the English Premier League revert back to the emergency measures they had at the start of the pandemic, with social distancing and mask-wearing being reinforced and testing increased.
Last week saw 42 cases among Premier League clubs reported, with Tottenham, Leicester City, Manchester United, Brighton, Aston Villa, Brentford, Watford, Liverpool and Norwich City all affected.
Tottenham’s game with Brighton had been postponed and United’s trip to Brentford was shelved. Despite having a depleted squad Leicester played and comfortably beat Newcastle 4-0 but their game against Spurs on Thursday was subsequently given the go-ahead.
Six games in the Premier League were shelved at the weekend and clubs are due to meet on Monday to discuss what steps to take during an escalating crisis.
Over the festive period, as the situation has deteriorated around the country, football and Covid-19 will be intertwined once again.
While the impact so far has been felt mainly by English clubs, it has started to creep into the Scottish game. Dundee United, St Johnstone and St Mirren have been affected in the last week.
Clubs are already taking additional precautions. Aberdeen players cancelled their Christmas party, while their manager Stephen Glass revealed after the St Johnstone game they laid on an extra bus for players and some had decided to travel by car to Perth.
It had come after national clinical director Jason Leitch had caused confusion with his comments regarding isolation, which contradicted what the Joint Response Group had told clubs.
Fears were raised after clubs were told initially that should a single case of Omicron be identified on a team bus then all other passengers would be forced into a 10-day isolation period.
However, this was later clarified to state that non-household contacts would be exempt from isolation, provided they are double-jabbed and provide a negative test result.
All this episode did was underline how every party is still struggling to find ways and means of navigating this latest round of chaos. No-one has the best answers and it can muddy the waters, in terms of what advice to follow.
But with the winter period traditionally bringing on more colds and viruses anyway, it appears to be something clubs are going to have to be ready to weather, reverting to previous measures if they must.
The worst-case scenario would obviously be games being called off in Scotland. No-one wants that. A step further back would be for crowds to be reduced or removed altogether; another undesirable factor for football clubs to contemplate after the financial disasters caused by Covid-19.
But it is something Scottish football figures will be nervously looking over their shoulders about, hoping and praying they are not the ones who have an outbreak to deal with.
Covid-19 and football have had an uneasy relationship over the last two years and it shows no sign of changing yet.
