Restarting football too soon 'irresponsible' says Fifa president
Most domestic leagues around the world are on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic while major tournaments such as Euro 2020 and the Copa America have been postponed for one year.
"No match, no competition, no league is worth risking a single human life," Infantino said.
"It’s better to wait a little bit longer than to take risks."Football is continuing in a handful of countries, including Belarus, Burundi, Nicaragua and Tajikistan.
Infantino, head of football's world governing body, insisted that safety should come first.
"I cannot stress this enough," he told Fifa's 211 member associations on Friday.
"Our first priority, our principle, the one we will use for our competitions and encourage everyone to follow, is that health comes first.
"Everyone in the world should have this very clear in their mind."Discussions are being held around the world over when and how to restart the season.
In addition, in some countries there are disagreements over whether players should face pay cuts.
"It would be more than irresponsible to force competitions to resume if things are not 100% safe," said Infantino.
Pogba 'hungry' to return to action
The France international, 27, has not played since 26 December, having suffered a further setback following an early-season foot problem.
Pogba told the United Podcast he has been "frustrated for a long time" but will resume training when the club return after the coronavirus pandemic.
"I'm almost there; I'm just thinking about training with the team," he said.The World Cup winner had surgery in January and has been limited to eight appearances this season.
"You think bad but I've never had something like this in my career, so I always take it in a good way," he told United's official podcast.
"It makes me more hungry to come back and do well, and it just shows me how much I love football."He said that he was caused more problems when, during rehab while wearing a plaster cast, one of the bones in his foot grew.
"I don't know if people really know what happened," he added.The Premier League was initially postponed until 3 April, and then 30 April - until it was decided the top flight would only return when "it is safe and appropriate to do so".
Formula 1 could begin championship in October
Formula 1 could still hold a world championship this year even if the season cannot start until October, managing director Ross Brawn says.
Brawn said F1 was looking at closed-door races as a way to start the season once the coronavirus crisis eases and "every permutation is being discussed".
F1 must run eight races for a season to be classed as a world championship.
"If you wanted a drop-dead point (deadline), it would be October," Brawn said.
"But then there's always the possibility we could run into next year, and that's being explored - could we stray into January to finish the season."Brawn, talking to Sky, said there was no point starting the season unless it could be kept going and pointed out that races on permanent circuits were easier to re-schedule than those on temporary tracks such as street circuits.
The Monaco Grand Prix has already cancelled permanently this year, while the other eight races called off so far have only been postponed, with the hope of rescheduling them later on.
Brawn said he believed the 2020 season could include anywhere between eight and 19 races and that plans for how to approach a season were changing almost every day.
"It's a very dynamic and volatile situation," he said.An F1 spokesman said Brawn views October as the final possible starting date for a season that contains eight races and finishes before the end of the year.
To get 19 races into the schedule, the season would have to start in July with the likelihood of running into January 2021.
Rogers Cup WTA event postponed until August 2021
The decision to call off August's WTA event in Montreal has been made with both the women's and men's tours already suspended until 12 July.
A WTA statement said the move was because of "measures taken by the Quebec government to prohibit events until 31 August, 2020".
No announcement has been made about the men's event, taking place in Toronto.
Each year the men's and women's events switch between Toronto and Montreal.
"At the beginning of the crisis we were hoping that the situation would be resolved in time to be able to host our tournament as initially planned on the calendar, but we knew that the chances were getting smaller and smaller in recent weeks," said tournament director Eugene Lapierre.
from Bola Esho's Blog
Comments
Post a Comment