Last updated on May 6th, 2021 at 07:48 am
Fifa president Gianni Infantino has refused to rule out postponing international football matches in response to the escalating global threat of the coronavirus.
This weekend’s matches in the leading two divisions in Switzerland, where football’s global governing body Fifa has its headquarters, were postponed on Friday after the government banned all events involving more than a thousand people. “The health of persons is much more important than any football game,” said Infantino as he arrived in Belfast on Friday for this weekend’s annual general meeting of the rule-making International Football Association Board. “If games have to be postponed or played without spectators until it is over, then we have to go through that.”
The new coronavirus has caused fixture delays across sport, with Ireland’s Six Nations rugby union international at home to Italy, scheduled for March 7, postponed and no new date confirmed.
In Asia, the Chinese Formula One Grand Prix in Shanghai, due to take place on April 19, has been postponed because of the virus while athletics’ World Indoor Championships, scheduled to take place in the Chinese city of Nanjing next month, have been held over until 2021. The outbreak could yet threaten the continent-wide Euro 2020 football championships starting in June and the Tokyo Olympics, due to get underway in July.
