Coronavirus puts Cardiff ’s pre-season plans on hold
NEIL Harris has revealed the coronavirus outbreak may force Cardiff City to abandon their summer pre-season plans.
The spread of the virus across Europe has already seen a number of sporting events postponed, including Italy’s Six Nations clashes with Ireland and England respectively.
Other summer events under threat include football’s upcoming European Championships and the summer Olympic Games.
The number of cases in the UK has hit 100 this week, with the second case in Wales being confirmed yesterday afternoon.
Harris admits the club are having to keep a close eye on developments, particularly in regards to their pre-season plans.
Speaking ahead of his side’s trip to Barnsley this weekend, Harris confirmed City had intended to travel to a complex in Portugal this summer, a country that has so far confirmed six cases of the virus.
“We’d identified going to a resort there,” he said. “It’s an area I know, a training complex I know, but also I know that hospitality wise for travelling fans it’s also very good.
“It’s somewhere we were looking at, but obviously now that is going onto a backburner and we have to think about what we’re going to do.
“We have to think seriously as a club, health and safety wise, but also think what’s right for the players and the fans as well.
“I like to involve fans in pre-season. So if we could travel and the fans could come along for a few days then that builds everyone together.
“Obviously, different teams make different decisions at different rates. I would’ve liked to have had this organised by now. That’s not possible now.
“We have to have a plan A, plan B and plan C. We will have different ideas, and that will involve playing abroad, or England, or Wales, or Scotland, to a different training complex.
“But again, we are governed a little bit by what goes on by the coming weeks.”
Harris’ preference in terms of summer plans is still to go abroad with his players, admitting it will help take the edge off what he warns will be a gruelling schedule.
“You want to go overseas, because you want to break up the environment and the mentality of pre-season.
“It lasts about six weeks, which isn’t very long, but it is in a football period. It’s monotonous being in every day and the players will be here early in the morning for some of my sessions, about 7am or something, and they will be here late at night at times and that will involve three or four sessions a day.
“They’re the levels we have to get to, to be fit to get to the standards where I want to be at. If you do that day after day, after six or seven days a week for three weeks, players can get bored of my voice, bored at the sight of my staff. Bored of each other.
“So you need to do something different, which means ideally you go abroad. This year it is diffierent. We have to be prepared for the fact that there is a dangerous virus out there that could affect what we’re going to do.”
Meanwhile, despite hand sanitisers being freely available around the club’s training ground, Harris insists he’s not received any official guidance on how to deal with the outbreak.
He added: “I’ve not been advised by safety departments, I’ve not been advised by the Football League or anyone at the club.
“I think we understand the implications of the virus and we’ve seen at football clubs just how destructive a bit of man flu can be.
“It can disrupt matchday squads and things like that. So, we have to be mindful and we have to be careful and diligent with it.”
Harris says there’s no specific time limit on confirming any pre-season plans, but admits any delay in organisation could have an impact later down the line.
“You can leave it as late as you want, but if you want good opposition, and to involve the fanbase and you want to have a clear structure, then you want to do it as soon as possible.
“Ideally, it would have been organised last week.”