THE Newcastle Jets are preparing for the A-League season to resume as scheduled despite the uncertainty caused by three Melbourne teams being stuck on their side of the border.
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Football Federation Australia is anxiously awaiting NSW government exemptions for Melbourne Victory, Melbourne City and Western United to enter NSW, preferably without having to spend 14 days in isolation.
Players from all three Victorian clubs have been stranded in Melbourne after flights to Canberra on Monday and Tuesday were cancelled because of bad weather and fog.
There was speculation on Thursday that the NSW government was poised to grant dispensation for the teams to fly in without requiring a quarantine period, or at least allow them to train while in quarantine.
Football Federation Australia officials have also been working on a contingency plans that would involve rescheduling some of the remaining 27 regular-season games, which they had hoped to complete within 28 days, starting next Thursday when Victory are drawn to face Western United.
Jets chief executive Lawrie McKinna said all those issues were outside his club's control, so they were staying focused on the first of their four remaining games, against Sydney FC at Kogarah on Tuesday, July 21.
"There's been nothing from FFA to tell us any different, so it's business as usual," McKinna said.
"We just carry on training and preparing as normal, unless anything changes."
Newcastle will be boosted on Friday by the return to training of assistant coach Kenny Miller and midfielder Joe Ledley, who have both completed 14 days' hotel quarantine after returning to the United Kingdom when the coronavirus pandemic forced the A-League to shut down in mid-March.
Head coach Carl Robinson, who flew to Canada to be with his family, will complete his hotel quarantine at midnight on Friday and attend Saturday's training session.
Robinson will get a chance to run a close eye over his troops on Wednesday, when they play a friendly match against Western Sydney Wanderers behind closed doors in Sydney.
AAP reports: A-League boss Greg O'Rourke has promised to meet frustrated players' travel demands as Melbourne's three teams wait to learn if they'll be granted NSW border exemptions.
The players union (PFA) slammed FFA's handling of the situation after the three clubs were twice thwarted in attempts to fly out of Victoria this week.
The PFA also delivered O'Rourke a set of demands from players of those clubs that needed to be carried out before they agreed to travel.
Those included written proof of border exemptions, details on travel, accommodation and training along with personal restrictions while in the hub.
O'Rourke said on Thursday he had spoken to senior players personally and planned for teams to be ready to mobilise within 24 hours, if they secured exemptions. "We will have all those plans and those requests that they wish to have in place, explained to them before we take off again," O'Rourke told SEN radio. "We'll make sure we have written exemptions."
O'Rourke defended the decision to wait until this week to attempt to relocate the teams to NSW, even as Melbourne teams from other sporting codes departed earlier.
"No Victorian team was due to be in NSW until July 22, and in fact Melbourne City as an example were not due to be in NSW until August 1," O'Rourke said.
"So if we had made the decisions to bring them up earlier, we would've had them here for a month before they were due to play their second game.
"But we made that decision on the weekend to do that for Tuesday (with) no border restrictions in place.
"It failed because the situation changed and I take full responsibility for that."
The A-League season is scheduled to restart on July 16 when Western United are due to play Victory.
FFA has outlined a fixture of 27 games in 28 days to complete the regular season, before finals.