News is breaking fast all across the European sports landscape; almost as fast as the COVID-19 coronavirus is spreading, not coincidentally.
The latest bits — in addition to Chelsea canceling training today (Thursday) — include three Leicester City players self-isolating due to “symptoms”. They haven’t yet been confirmed as actually having COVID-19, so for now, Leicester’s game against Wolves is set to go ahead, and is set to go ahead in a full stadium. The Premier League have not yet made the decision to hold games behind closed doors, though that’s expected any day.
The situation is even more dire elsewhere. Spain have suspended La Liga for a month while two players in Serie A have now tested positive (Juventus’ Daniele Rugani and Sampdoria’s Manolo Gabbiadini). Two players at Hanover 96 in the Bundesliga have been confirmed as well. The entire Hanover squad have now been quarantined, which is the same as for Juventus and Real Madrid.
Those latter two developments have prompted UEFA to cancel next Tuesday’s Champions League matches (Man City vs. Real; Juve vs. Lyon) with no make-up date scheduled, and will instead hold an emergency meeting, in which they will discuss potentially canceling the rest of the Champions and Europa League for this season as well as possibly postponing Euro 2020 to 2021.
JUST IN: UEFA set to suspend the Champions League and Europa League
— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) March 12, 2020
UPDATE: The USL season in America has been suspended for the next 30 days.
USL Championship Temporarily Suspends Play pic.twitter.com/lUwfXvnIbl
— USL Championship (@USLChampionship) March 12, 2020