Top-flight clubs campaign for postponement of games
A group of Thai League 1 clubs have started a campaign to get the domestic league matches postponed in the aftermath of a global coronavirus outbreak which has affected Thailand as well, reports said.
The Football Association of Thailand (FAT) announced on Sunday that all domestic games scheduled for this month will be played behind closed doors to prevent the spread of the virus, which has now claimed more than 3,000 lives internationally.
Reports said that some top-flight clubs are gathering signatures for a petition, addressed to FAT president Somyot Poompunmuang, seeking a postponement of the league games to a later date.
The clubs are averse to the idea of playing matches without spectators, it was reported.
The decision to close all football stadiums to fans was reached at an emergency meeting of the national football governing body on Sunday shortly after the Thai government declared Covid-19 a dangerous communicable disease.
Somyot said yesterday that the FAT is waiting for the outcome of today’s cabinet meeting and “in case the government decides to raise the crisis alert to a higher level, we have already made arrangements to postpone all domestic games.”
Thailand are also scheduled to take on Indonesia at Bangkok’s Rajamangala
National Stadium on March 26 when the World Cup qualifying fixtures return.
They are also scheduled to play a friendly with Curacao on March 30 in Songkhla. These matches have not yet been cancelled.
The Asian Football Confederation will this week meet Fifa to discuss this month’s 2022 World Cup qualifiers.
ACL FURTHER HIT BY VIRUS
The Asian Champions League pushed back the start of its Eastern zone knockout rounds yesterday after the competition was severely disrupted by the novel coronavirus.
Extra dates for group games were scheduled for May and June, shunting the round of 16, which usually takes place in May, to August.
It is just the latest reshuffle for Asia’s premier club football competition as it struggles to accommodate a raft of postponements.
Chinese teams have been mostly sidelined until April, and games involving two South Korean clubs have also been delayed.
“These are challenging and unprecedented times,” the AFC general secretary Windsor John said in a statement, after emergency talks in Kuala Lumpur.
“The AFC will not put anyone at risk during these times of heightened health concerns and so we have taken some sensible decisions to postpone both matches and events.”