Everton’s trip to Burnley has been postponed by the Premier League.
Sunday’s game at Turf Moor was due to go ahead despite Rafael Benitez’s side suffering a spate of injuries and positive Covid-19 results in advance.
An appeal by the Blues for the fixture against the Clarets to be called off fell on deaf ears with top-flight chiefs when it was lodged earlier this week.
However a review of that decision on Friday morning confirmed that the game will be rescheduled at a later date in light of the extenuating circumstances.
“The board reviewed the club’s request today to postpone the match following further injuries to their squad,” confirmed a Premier League statement.
“They concluded that the club will not be able to fulfil their fixture this weekend as a result of an insufficient number of players available to play due to COVD-19 cases and injuries.
“The board this morning was able to make its decision in advance of Boxing Day to give clarity to clubs and their fans.
“We apologise for the inconvenience and disruption caused to those supporters’ festive plans.”
Benitez had lamented the original decision to allow the game to go ahead, claiming that Everton had only nine senior outfield available for selection.
“I was surprised that the game has not been postponed,” he said at the time.
“We follow all of the rules, lateral flow tests, PCR tests, we even have three dressing rooms to spread out the players to make sure to reduce the time they are together.
“But what we cannot control is that, when you go to a game and a player is positive with no symptoms, he can pass the virus to the others.
“That’s what happened against Chelsea. We had to play some young players, and after the game we found that we had five positive cases.”