Coronavirus Hits European Sporting Events

The Coronavirus outbreak is slowly working its was through Europe, seemingly unstoppable at the moment with pandemic leves and it is having a big impact on sport. Selected countries have been cancelling events, others have been playing behind closed doors and many more countries appear on the brink of following suit with one of those.

Where is the Worst to be Hit?

From a European point of view, this is certainly Italy. All sporting events have now been cancelled as the entire country is on lockdown. There will be no Serie A games until the beginning of April at the earliest, and some were cancelled a couple of weeks ago so they are going to face a huge test just to get this season completed.

France and Spain have both announced that they will be playing games behind closed doors for the next two weeks, with further decisions to be made in due course depending on that.

How Will the UK be Affected?

So far, we have seen one big game cancelled, Arsenal vs Manchester City in the Premier League. This is down to where Arsenal have been and who they have been in contact with rather than measures in the UK to stop the spread of coronavirus.

If things get much worse in the country then games will more than likely be postponed or played behind closed doors, although that is a huge decision to make and would have a massive financial impact on teams.

For smaller sports, gate receipts are the key to survival and although we don’t hope for it to happen, it would be no surprise if a couple of teams have big financial difficulties due to the coronavirus outbreak.

See where COVID-19 has spread in the Europe

What about Big Summer Events?

This is a huge summer of sport, and two of the main events look to be under severe consideration as to whether they will be able to go ahead.

Up first is the European Championships. This year is the worst possible year to play the tournament as not only do we have the Coronavirus hitting Europe, but this edition will feature host nations from all over Europe and a lot of travelling involved.

Had the competition been held in one country with limited travelling, more optimism would have been around it but right now it is going to take a big surge in the virus to get it over and done with before June for this event to take place.

The second big event of the summer is the Olympics. These are set to be held in Japan, an Asian country which is the continent where Coronavirus began. Japan have been very cautious since the outbreak, with strict instructions to their people and quarantine in placed for anyone who has been outside of the country.

Regardless of whether the Olympic federation wants to go ahead or not, would Japan as a country allow all of the competitors and fans from around the world into their country if there was any risk? That seems unlikely, though the one benefit for the Olympics is that it is not scheduled to take place until the end of July.