Hockey Ireland cancels Malaysia trip due to travel, quarantine periods

"At this point in our build up to Europeans and the Olympics, the health and wellbeing of our staff and players is paramount. Weighing up the potential performance benefit of heat and humidity versus the uncertainties we live with at this time globally, particularly with travel and quarantine periods, has been incredibly difficult."

This was posted on Hockey Ireland's website yesterday.

Travellers to Malaysia who have a negative RT-PCR Covid-19 test result will be quarantined for seven days in Malaysia.

Malaysian ministers, however, only require a three-day quarantine period - a move which has been slammed by health experts.

As Twentytwo13's Graig Nunis pointed out in his weekly dairy published today, for the second week running, the number of new cases exceeded recoveries with 9,635 new infections taking the total number of Covid-19 cases to 357,607. 

If the number of cases was recorded in Hockey Ireland's statement, then it would have made sense. 

But to say "... the uncertainties we live with at this time globally, particularly with travel and quarantine periods ..." - before even planning a trip to Malaysia, I'm sure the administrators there would know about Malaysia's quarantine rules and as such plan accordingly.

If a seven-day quarantine is deemed "too long", the Northern Ireland team wouldn't have planned to come to Malaysia now, would they?

Unless of course Hockey Ireland was informed of something else and later realised it was not doable. Hmm ...