Chelsea players cannot holiday or return home to countries on UK quarantine list

Chelsea players have been told not to go on holiday to any country that is on the United Kingdom’s quarantine list.

That rules out popular footballer hot spots such as Ibiza, Marbella and Portugal, and means Chelsea’s Spanish players cannot return home during their break.

Tottenham Hotspur star Dele Alli has been in Ibiza with Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish and Leicester City’s James Maddison, but Chelsea have told their players not to travel to the Balearic Island.

With such a tight turnaround between the end of Chelsea’s season and the start of next term, the club cannot afford for players to risk having to go into a two-week isolation on their return.

Chelsea players will immediately start their holidays if, as expected, Frank Lampard’s team are eliminated from the Champions League on Saturday night by Bayern Munich, who are 3-0 up from the first leg.

• Hudson-Odoi must use Bayern game to prove worth to Lampard and Chelsea

Lampard has appealed to the Premier League to allow his side to start the season later, but, currently, they will have less than five weeks between their seasons if they are eliminated by Bayern.

With Pedro Rodriguez leaving, Chelsea have three Spanish players in their squad — captain Cesar Azpilicueta, Marcos Alonso and Kepa Arrizabalaga — who cannot return home.

Michy Batshuayi will not be allowed back to Belgium after the country was on Thursday night added to the quarantine list, while Christian Pulisic cannot return to the United States and goalkeeper Willy Caballero cannot go back to his native Argentina because of the self-isolation rules.

Chelsea's French, Italian, German, and Croatian players, including N’Golo Kante, Olivier Giroud, Kurt Zouma, Jorginho, Emerson Palmieri, Antonio Rudiger, Timo Werner and Mateo Kovacic can return home.

But should any of those countries be added to the UK’s quarantine list, then they may be required to return to England immediately, before the restrictions kick in.

As revealed by Telegraph Sport on Thursday, Chelsea will not be making any overseas or long-haul trips to play pre-season friendlies this summer after cancelling their US tour.