China postpones all football matches due to Coronavirus

Authorities in China suspended all domestic football and have postponed the start of the Chinese Super League season.

China.- Chinese authorities have announced the suspension of all domestic football matches and have postponed indefinitely the start of the Chinese Super League (CSL) season in an attempt to control the spread of the Coronavirus that is affecting the country.

The CSL 2020 campaign was scheduled to begin on February 22, but was shelved along with “all types of football matches” in order to “carry out prevention and control of the pneumonia epidemic,” the Chinese Football Association said in a statement.

The announcement comes just a few hours after the World Indoor Athletics Championships, scheduled to take place in the Chinese city of Nanjing in March, were postponed until 2021 after advice from the World Health Organisation.

It becomes the latest sport to be hit by the virus which by Thursday had seen more than 7,700 cases confirmed in China with at least 170 fatalities. 

On Wednesday, World Cup skiing races, the first test events for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, were cancelled because of the outbreak. 

The men’s downhill and super-G races were scheduled for February 15 and February 16 in Yanqing, 70 kilometres (45 miles) northwest of Beijing.