The Premier League’s clubs have agreed to introduce daily Covid testing for players and training‑ground staff as they fight to prevent the postponement of further games and, in the worst-case scenario, a break in the competition. The move was sanctioned on Tuesday at a meeting between the clubs and the league as new legislation to regulate specific commercial deals, conceived in response to the Saudi‑led takeover of Newcastle, was also voted in. The league announced on Monday that 42 players and club officials had tested positive for coronavirus in the seven days that ended on Sunday – a record for a single week since testing began. The increase in cases has severely affected Manchester United, who were forced to seek the postponement of their fixture at Brentford on Tuesday night. It was granted just before midnight on Monday, the league’s board having convened late on once the relevant PCR results had been obtained. The board considered the outbreak at United to be “ongoing” and, with a significant number of positive tests and the club having temporarily closed their training ground, felt they had no option but to agree to the postponement. On the back of the outbreak at Tottenham, which led to the postponement of their matches against Rennes in the Europa Conference League and Brighton in the league and positive tests at other clubs the issue of Covid protocols was prominent at the meeting on Tuesday. There are plenty of worries, the feeling being that the game is at a critical point. It is accepted that with wider society not in lockdown, the players face greater risks with regard to transmission of the virus and that the concept of maintaining “bubbles” is more problematic. The message from the league’s chief executive, Richard Masters, was for clubs to follow the newly beefed‑up safety measures – they are back to the most stringent of the pandemic – and to urge their players to get booster jabs. The vaccine threshold exemption, which had allowed for a relaxing of certain measures such as social distancing if 85% of a club’s staff were vaccinated, has been discontinued. Masters ran through the broad criteria for a postponement – which involve training grounds being shut and clubs having fewer than 14 first‑team players fit, including no goalkeeper – but his direction was that the show must go on, which the clubs support. Many of them would be happy to press on if they had, for example, a handful of positive Covid cases because they are mindful of the potential for horrendous fixture pile-ups. The summer of next year has already been compressed to allow for the World Cup in November and December. The rule change that has come into effect concerns what are called related or associated party transactions – in other words, deals that involve companies with links to a club’s ownership. If a club has a proposal from an entity perceived to be linked to their owners and it is worth more than £1m, they must go before the league’s board to prove that it is of fair market value. To reach a decision, the league will consider evidence from the club and an independent agency – which is expert in the field of market valuation. Finally, it will lean on a data bank, in which all of the commercial deals in the league are recorded anonymously and benchmarked. The vote was passed 18-2, with Newcastle and Manchester City voting against. Previously, the clubs had introduced a temporary ban on related party transactions which was due to expire at 5pm on Tuesday.