Milan: Italy’s football league has again been hit by coronavirus with Saturday’s Serie A game between Genoa and Torino postponed after 15 positive tests at the Ligurian club. The third-round match is the first in Serie A to be postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic since the championship started on September 19. A meeting of the Extraordinary Council of the Lega Serie A confirmed the application of UEFA rules whereby a match can only take place as long as a side have 13 healthy players, including a goalkeeper.
Genoa published a list of 11 players and four staff members who had contracted the virus. Goalkeeper Mattia Perin and midfielder Lasse Schoene both missed Genoa’s 6-0 Serie A defeat at Napoli on Sunday, and 13 others returned positive tests since the game. Genoa had demanded that the match be pushed back with health authorities cancelling the team’s Thursday training session with players undergoing a new round of tests. In the case of 10 positive players detected within a week, a club can request the postponement of a match. The request can only be granted once within a season.
Torino president Urbano Cairo hit out at Italian football chiefs’ slowness in deciding on how to proceed. “The important thing is that a rule had to be established, like UEFA did some time ago by establishing when to play and when not to play’’, Cairo told Sky Sports Italia. — AFP
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