Coronavirus throws world sport into turmoil – Daily Monitor

The world is on high alert and in fear of the coronavirus disease coded Covid-19.
By virtue of its swift spread across multiple countries, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has marked this outbreak as a pandemic.
Since its breakout in China late last year, more than 120,000 cases and 4,300 deaths have been reported in 115 countries as of yesterday.
Outside China, Italy has been the worst-hit country, with more than 10,000 cases and in attempt to control the spread, authorities there have ordered museums, night clubs, all shops except those for food and pharmacies, closed.
In Uganda, the Ministry of Health is on high alert and President Museveni has cautioned the public against handshaking and hugging.
This pathogen’s spread is affecting lifestyles and not sparing anyone. Actor Tom Hanks announced via social media Instagram that he and his wife Rita Wilson were diagnosed with the virus in Australia.
Global sport in disarray
The coronavirus wildfire is burning at the global sport end, with the pinch being felt across football, hockey, golf, athletics, rugby, and tennis, among others.
Tournament calendars have been torn apart, with a number of events postponed or called off on grounds of health risks.
Long-distance runner Joshua Cheptegei, currently Uganda’s best athlete with three world records and five global medals since 2017, was due to travel to Gdynia, Poland, as part of Team Uganda for the biennial World Half-Marathon Championships on March 29.
“Yes, it is disturbing the preparations a lot,” Cheptegei’s manager Jurrie van der Velden, said.
This becomes the second event to be postponed by World Athletics after the World Indoor Championships earlier set for next weekend in Nanjing, China, were pushed to 2021.
Dutchman Jurrie normally travels with Ugandan runners under the Global Sports Communication management across the world, but with travel restrictions rising and stringent measures for Covid-19, the route to the Tokyo Olympics is getting more complex.

Ugandan sportsmen at test
Last Sunday, he was with Filex Chemonges, who finished ninth in 2:10:08 at a cautiously held Lake Biwa Marathon in Japan.
Jurrie was due to travel to Spain with another pairing of Robert Chemonges and Geoffrey Kusuro for the Barcelona Marathon tomorrow, but it has been postponed to October 25.
“We are looking for alternative races,” he said. “But there is nothing we can do about it. Just trying to use our contacts as good as we can to propose alternatives to the athletes.”
“Every weekend, which passes with a couple of races taking place, we are happy as it means athletes get the chance to compete and qualify for the Olympics. The more races get cancelled, the more difficult it becomes,” Jurrie added.
Two Ugandan middle-distance runners Winnie Nanyondo and Halimah Nakaayi had prepared for Nanjing but will for now, be grounded to training at Namboole stadium.
Athletics has been hit hard because of the challenge to control crowds, especially at road events.
Like the inaugural Basketball Africa League, USA’s famous NBA was suspended after a player tested positive.
That came moments after an NBA game between franchises Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder players on court for warm-ups at the Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma were called back to the locker-rooms and the match was abruptly postponed on Wednesday night.
Football events in Europe like Italy’s top-flight football league – Serie A – in particular, has been called off until April 3. The La Liga in Spain followed suite this week.
After that announcement in Italy, Juventus Football Club defender Daniele Rugani tested positive for the coronavirus and he is undergoing a mandatory 14-day quarantine.
Juventus are still due to host French club Olympique Lyon in the Champions League last-16 second leg in Turin on Tuesday, but Uefa, the leading soccer body for Europe, is under increased pressure to cancel the rest of this season’s Champions League and Europa League games because of the virus.
Some matches are being played behind closed doors like in Germany, but the Rugani case brings in a whole new twist.
“The sports calendar has to be the lesser consideration when so many countries are gripped by a health crisis,” Associated Press Global Sports correspondent Rob Harris told Saturday Monitor on Thursday.
The Premier League in England has gone ahead to ban pre-match handshakes between players and officials in all its competitions until further notice.
Here, Liverpool FC is mathematically three wins away from its first English top-flight title since 1990, but what if the Premier League is halted?
“Determining titles is clearly no longer the priority for so many,” said Harris.
“That said, if the experts say the spread of the virus is not affected by playing games behind closed doors, then that is a viable option. The public still has sport to watch in those cases. But the Rugani case shows how even playing games without fans is no longer a necessarily way of controlling the coronavirus,” the London-based journalist remarked.
To play or not to
Sports fans across the world are having divided opinion on whether events continue to take place without them in stadiums or they are called-off. For clubs, sponsors and major stakeholders, it is not making any business sense.
Case in point, a match ticket for a Los Angeles Lakers’ match at Staple Center in the suspended NBA goes for an average $473 (Shs1.7m), according to GOBankingRates.
That doesn’t include fans who hold season tickets, which also happens across other sports like Formula One, the ATP World Tennis Tour and with Premier League clubs.
So when action is called off for fear of the coronavirus, teams and franchises are losing billions of money in tickets and through the broadcast rights.

No business, strange times
Lakers, who lead the NBA Western Conference, still had 10 regular season matches scheduled at Staple Centre, which hosts 18,997 for a contest.
The NBA suspension may bring about an estimated loss of over $50m (Shs184b) in ticket revenue alone. If you keep adding up, NBA has 30 franchises, each counting losses.
“The long-term sporting concerns, beyond the most important of health, is the financial viability of clubs seeing their ticket revenue disappear and how they ensure players and staff are paid. That needs a unified action plan across countries and sport,” Harris added.
“In the modern era, this virus has created what is fast becoming an unprecedented situation,” said Centre for the Eurasian Sport Industry director Simon Chadwick.
These are indeed strange times for global sport. The pinch is being felt directly and even more indirectly.
“Sport has been beset over the last three or four decades by drug bans and boycotts, though nothing matches the scale of the coronavirus.”
“With every match or event cancelled, the industry’s economic impact is undermined; revenues from ticket sales being hit; apparel and sportswear sales are down. For modern commercial sport, there has never been anything like this,” Chadwick told Al Jazeera.

Shadow over the Olympics
Beyond football, things are still more complex as a number of qualification events to the Tokyo Olympics are in shadows.
There are some Ugandan boxers eyeing the Paris qualifying event from May 13-20, but in case it is altered, these pugilists may not be able to hit the desired grades within the set windows.
Staging of the games from July 24 to August 9 in Japan is at a test too. “So I think the end of May is an important benchmark,” Japanese Olympics Minister Seiko Hashimoto said last week.
“We’re making utmost efforts so that the IOC (International Olympic Committee) can be convinced that the Tokyo Games can be held safely,” added Hashimoto.

Ugandan athletes missing managers
Travel restrictions. Back here, Uganda has placed restrictions on travellers from 16 coronavirus-affected countries, including France, Germany, the Netherlands, USA and the United Kingdom, where some managers of Ugandan runners hail from.
Runners like Jacob Kiplimo and Oscar Chelimo have managers and coaches based in Tuscany, Italy, and so is Joshua Cheptegei (pictured), whose manager Jurrie van der Velden is from Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
Their Olympics’ preparations are affected as the runners and managers may find it hard to have direct personal contact, notwithstanding travel bans intersecting from other countries.
It means some countries may not be able to field participants to offer competition or contestation in the build-up to Tokyo.
However, the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA) where Uganda Olympic Committee (UOC) falls, is reassuring commitment to the Tokyo Games.
“The IOC (International Olympic Committee) Executive Board encourages all athletes to continue to prepare for the Olympic Games. The IOC will keep supporting the athletes by providing the latest information and developments,” said ANOCA president, Algerian Mustapha Berraf, flanked by UOC boss William Blick during a press conference this week.
Uganda is yet to register a coronavirus case, but are sporting events like the Uganda Premier League (UPL) putting the fears into consideration?
“Under the broad prevention mechanism of the Ministry of Health, I would say yes,” UPL board chairman Arinaitwe Rugyendo told this paper.
From the UPL, which is currently on a break, its selected players will represent Uganda at the Africa Nations Championship (Chan) finals in Cameroon from April 4-25.
However, Cameroon reported its second coronavirus case in Yaounde a week ago.

Coronavirus sports notes
Football: Premier League clubs are preparing for the football season to be suspended after the Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta (pictured) tested positive for coronavirus on Thursday night and their match today against Brighton was postponed.
Arsenal confirmed their first team squad and coaches would now self-isolate, and they would be unable to play some fixtures on the scheduled dates. In the early hours of Thursday, Chelsea announced their players are self-isolating after Callum Hudson-Odoi tested positive.
Juventus players Daniele Rugani, who tested positive for the coronavirus, has made only seven appearances this season. He was an unused substitute in his side’s last match – a 2-0 win over Inter Milan – held behind closed doors on Sunday.
A Real Madrid basketball player, who shares training facilities with the La Liga club, tested positive for the virus. The Real Madrid football club is in quarantine and the Spanish top-flight La Liga has been suspended for ‘at least the next two rounds of matches’ as a result.
Bosnia-Herzegovina have made a request to Uefa to postpone the home Euro 2020 play-off semi-final against Northern Ireland on March 26. It was expected that the game in Zenica would be played behind closed doors because of coronavirus, but the Bosnian FA now want the game to be called off.
Basketball: If the NBA season does not resume, it could mean Atlanta Hawks forward Vince Carter has played his final NBA game. The 43-year-old, who was retiring at the end of this season, is the first NBA player to have a career spanning four decades.
E sports: The 2020 League of Legends LPL Spring tournament has been postponed.
Formula One: McLaren have withdrawn from this weekend’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix after a team member tested positive for coronavirus.
Hockey: Hockey Pro League matches between China and Belgium in Changzhou have been canceled.
Table tennis: The World Championship to be held in Busan, South Korea, has been pushed from March to June.
Tennis: This week’s Indian Wells tournament was cancelled abruptly on Sunday, after one case of the virus was detected locally. And the inaugural 12-team Fed Cup Finals were postponed on Wednesday.
Source: BBC and CNN