Safa not panicking over coronavirus

All local football matches will go on as planned South Africa despite several cases of coronavirus confirmed in the country.

Safa says they have full confidence in the country’s help authorities and don’t take the coronavirus lightly.

The Confederation of African Football announced on Friday that they had postponed all of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers for match days three and four.

South Africa was set to take on Sao Tome on March 27 in Johannesburg but the match has been called off.

“We wish to acknowledge the Coronavirus is here with us. A number of cases have been reported by the Government and the Health Authorities. The sad news is that the number of people who have been affected by the virus is still growing at this stage. However, the positive news is that the disease is not an epidemic in our country as yet. We have full confidence in our Health Authorities. We have seen critical patients getting better after coming into contact with the virus,” said Safa in the statement.

“As the football family of South Africa, we are taking our cue from our Government, represented by the Department of Health and our football mother bodies, Fifa and Caf. We will be guided by these authorities in all the decisions that we will be taking.

“On our own, we have already taken measures to minimise travelling of our teams to severely affected areas. Last month, we withdrew our Olympic Team from participating in a friendly in Japan.

“We have already developed precautionary measures for all our members, teams and clubs to use as a guideline to minimize contact with the virus. These measures have been posted on our website. We have also sent a circular to all our members advising them about the precautionary measure.”

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.