Beijing Guoan Photo: VCG

Beijing Guoan said it would give up the upcoming match against Shanghai Port that was slated to kick off on Tuesday in the Chinese Super League (CSL) 33rd round due to a serious shortage of available players.

Guoan sent a notification of its decision to the CSL committee early Tuesday morning. ­According to the CSL 2022 laws of the games, Guoan will be scored a 0:3 loss to Shanghai as the result of the forfeiture.

Guoan explained in a statement it published on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo later on Tuesday that since the 31st round, some players on their roster started to "show symptoms" (of COVID-19). They had to recruit nine players from its U21 team to complete the 32nd-round match.

Despite hoping to make it to the pitch, the club said it has only seven match-fit players, including three goalkeepers out of around 50 registered players on its first-tier team, U21 and U19 teams. Therefore they could not play the upcoming match against Shanghai.  

After the 33rd round, Beijing Guoan were in sixth place in the league and Shanghai were in fourth. 

Besides Guoan, three other teams also forfeited their games in the 33rd round and were handed 0-3 results.