CORONAVIRUS: China postpones 2020 season over looming fears

Top-flight Chinese Super League (CSL) fixtures have been postponed amid fears sparked by a deadly viral outbreak which continues to sweep across the country, as suggested by Chinese media reports. This has effectively seen the suspension to the all domestic and top-flight games for the season.

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The CSL 2020 campaign had been due to kick off on February 22, but was shelved in order to “carry out prevention and control of the pneumonia epidemic,” said a Chinese Football Association statement. The announcement comes just a few hours after the World Indoor Athletics Championships, scheduled to take place in March, were postponed until 2021 after advice from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

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A patient is assisted off an ambulance by medical staff in Wuhan amid the Coronavirus outbreak in China (Image: AFP/ Getty).

Football becomes the latest sport to be hit by the virus which by Thursday had reportedly seen more than 7 700 cases confirmed in China, with at least 170 fatalities. The virus is said to have spread from a commercial centre in China to more than 15 countries, with about 60 cases in Asia, Europe, North America and, most recently, the Middle East.

Winter Olympics, World Cup qualifying, and then some…

On Wednesday, World Cup skiing races, the first test events for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, were cancelled due to the outbreak. The men’s downhill and super-G races were scheduled for February 15 and 16 in Yanqing, 70 kilometres northwest of Beijing.

In Australia, the China’s women’s football team has been quarantined in a Brisbane hotel after arriving for an Olympic qualifying competition which had been originally due to take place in Wuhan. The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) on Wednesday ordered all four Chinese clubs’ first three fixtures in the continent’s Champions League’s group stage in February and March to be played away from home.

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China has seen a myriad of sporting events cancelled owing to the Coronavirus outbreak in the country (Image: Getty Images).

China is due to host the Maldives in a World Cup qualifying match on March 26 and travel to Guam for another qualifier on March 31. “The CFA will continue to maintain close communication with national authorities, and decide each event’s timing separately based on the actual development of the epidemic situation in each locality,” CFA said in a statement.

Earlier this month the International Tennis Federation moved next week’s Fed Cup’s Asia/ Oceania Group I event from Dongguan, southern China, to Kazakhstan on February 4 to 8. The Asian Indoor Athletics Championships planned for February 12 and 13 in Hangzhou have also been cancelled.