Covid-19 fears grind world sport to a halt

The coronavirus outbreak rocked the world of sport yesterday, as most sporting codes opted to either cancel or postpone tournaments in a bid to limit the spread of the virus.

Sport fans the world over had to figure out what to do with their time over the next few weeks – or even months – while the cost of cancelled or suspended events could run into the trillions of rands.

Take the Indian Premier League for example. The 60-game league is said to generate more than $11 billion (about R179 billion) a year to the Indian economy and Chinese mobile-maker Vivo paid $330 million to be the top sponsor for 2018-2022. They have moved the tournament from 29 March start to 15 April. Should it not take place, the financial implications are huge.

It’s reported the Football Association could lose up to $3.9 million for their high-profile friendly with Italy on 27 March, while other sports won’t be spared massive financial losses.

England’s Premier League became the latest high-profile competition to announce a suspension as the coronavirus pandemic continued.

On another frenetic day of sporting turmoil, the announcement that England’s top-flight soccer league would be halted came shortly after the sport’s European governing body Uefa announced that all next week’s Champions League and Europa League games had been postponed.

After Thursday’s wipe-out which included placing American leagues the NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball on hold, forcing the cancellation of the Australian Formula One Grand Prix in Melbourne, shutting down the men’s tennis Tour and curtailing golf’s Players Championship, the virus continued to decimate the global sporting calendar.

The Masters, which brings together the world’s best golfers in April for the year’s first Major, has been postponed because of the coronavirus, Augusta National Golf Club said yesterday.

The Bahrain Grand Prix scheduled for 22 March was also postponed by Formula One officials yesterday. It is the fourth Grand Prix to be called off in total. The Chinese Grand Prix was postponed by motorsport’s governing body last month because of the virus.

The death toll from Covid-19 jumped to over 5,000 yesterday as the number of cases around the world topped 134,000, according to an AFP tally.

Despite the disruption, Tokyo Olympics organisers continued to sound an upbeat note yesterday, saying this year’s Games will go ahead as planned, although the iconic torch relay through Greece was cancelled.

England’s Premier League had stood almost alone in not suspending the season, but at an emergency meeting it was decided that the fixtures would stop until 4 April at the earliest.

The Football League and Women’s Super League were also suspended until 3 April while England’s friendly internationals against Italy and Denmark have been postponed.

All fixtures in Scotland have also been postponed.

In rugby, the final round of Six Nations clashes this weekend was postponed. There is no guarantee when any of the delayed games will be played. Meanwhile fans will be locked out of all Super Rugby games in Australia following this weekend’s fixtures, but New Zealand and SA insist it will be business as usual as it stands. The Pro14 tournament, which involves the Kings and Cheetahs, has already been suspended.

India’s home three-match one-day international series against SA was yesterday called off ahead of tomorrow’s second match.

– Sport staff, Reuters and AFP

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