Bergamo (Italy) (AFP) – Ecstatic fans cheering and hugging at the Champion's League Atalanta-Valencia game in February boosted the spread of the coronavirus, the mayor of the worst-hit Italian city said Tuesday. Bergamo, in the northern Lombardy region, is now Italy's most-affected province, with nearly 6,500 infections. Its football team Atalanta had been having a […]

Madrid (AFP) – Aston Villa goalkeeper Pepe Reina has said he believes he has been suffering from the new coronavirus. Reina, who joined Villa on loan from AC Milan in January, was unable to take a test but says doctors considered his symptoms to be consistent with COVID-19. "They don't give you a test here […]

London (AFP) – Carlo Ancelotti surprised an Everton fan with motor neurone disease while Jose Mourinho helped deliver care packages as Premier League managers joined in the battle against the coronavirus crisis. The English top flight has been suspended until at least April 30 due to the pandemic but clubs and managers are pitching in […]

Asuncion (AFP) – Former Manchester City, Real Madrid and Togo international forward Emmanuel Adebayor is stuck in quarantine in Benin over the coronavirus pandemic, his Paraguayan club Olimpia said on social media. The 36-year-old "took the decision to return to his country for the duration of the quarantine period declared by the government" of Paraguay, […]

London (AFP) – Harry Kane says he is on track to be fit when the Premier League returns as the Tottenham striker urged people to "stay safe" from the coronavirus. Kane has been sidelined since suffering a torn hamstring tendon in Tottenham's New Year's Day defeat at Southampton. The England captain needed surgery on the […]

London (AFP) – Ireland football manager Mick McCarthy is in self-isolation in London with his wife due to the coronavirus pandemic, describing their situation to the Football Association of Ireland website as 'very frightening.' The 61-year-old revealed two nearby neighbours had been diagnosed with the illness provoking him and his wife Fiona to self-isolate. Britain […]

Sydney (AFP) – Australia's last active sport, the A-League soccer, pulled the plug on its season Tuesday to curb the spread of coronavirus, with bosses saying it had become "mission impossible". The decision follows the National Rugby League and the country's most popular spectator sport, Aussie Rules, making similar decisions over the past two days. […]

Milan (AFP) – Former Italy football captain Paolo Maldini said Monday he expects to recover "within a week" after being diagnosed with the new coronavirus. Maldini, 51, now the technical director at AC Milan, and his 18-year-old son Daniel, a youth team player, had been in self-isolation at home for two weeks. The team announced […]

Milan (AFP) – Italian clubs Napoli and Lazio have both postponed their planned return to training this week due to the coronavirus pandemic which has killed over 6,000 people in Italy. Italian football has been on hold since March 9 because of the COVID-19 outbreak which has become the Mediterranean nation's biggest disaster since World […]

Nyon (Switzerland) (AFP) – UEFA announced on Monday that it has postponed the Champions League, Europa League and women's Champions League finals, originally scheduled for May, due to the coronavirus pandemic, with no new date given. European football's governing body had already postponed the competitions until further notice earlier this month. UEFA said that "no […]

Paris (AFP) – Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar remain the three best-paid footballers in the world, according to a study by France Football magazine. The study estimates the income of the world's highest-paid players by adding their estimated gross salaries and income from image rights to bonuses earned last season. As a result, the […]

Berlin (AFP) – The first Bundesliga player to test positive for coronavirus said on Monday he had been "really scared" as he suffered from the illness. Paderborn's Luca Kilian, 20, was the first case of COVID-19 in the German top-flight which has been postponed until at least April 2 due to the pandemic. The Germany […]

Sao Paulo (AFP) – Brazil's top football clubs are handing over their stadiums to allow health authorities to turn them into field hospitals and clinics to fight the coronavirus pandemic. With football in the country suspended until further notice, more than half the clubs in Brazil's Serie A have given up their stadiums as authorities […]

Rome (AFP) – The head of an Italian football club based at the heart of the coronavirus pandemic in Brescia said it was time to cancel the Serie A season because of "the plague". The top Italian league's basement dwellers are destined for relegation — should the matches ever play out to their logical end […]

Madrid (AFP) – Juventus midfielder Sami Khedira is learning to play the piano, La Liga clubs are facing off on playstation and Atalanta's Robin Gosens has been revising for exams in psychology. Yet as thousands of footballers, from the highest levels to the lower leagues, remain on lockdown while coronavirus spreads across Europe, all of […]