Virus sows chaos for Serie A teams
At least four of the 10 Serie A matches scheduled for Thursday won’t be played after local health authorities ordered teams into quarantine amid rising coronavirus cases.
Inter Milan showed up at Bologna’s Dall’Ara stadium for its game despite knowing it wouldn’t be played due to the host team having eight players test positive.
Inter’s players warmed up for the game, then retreated to the changing room and showered before the referee called off the match after 45 minutes of waiting for Bologna to show up.
The quarantine orders came from authorities in Bologna, Turin, Udine and Salerno.
League officials met late Wednesday and decided all of the games should still be played. So none of the games have been officially postponed. That means that teams such as Inter, Atalanta, Fiorentina and Venezia could still show up for matches that they know won’t be played. Then authorities will likely go through a lengthy legal process to decide on the status of the affected games and if they should be postponed to a later date.
⏩ A coronavirus outbreak at Manchester City put manager Pep Guardiola and seven players in isolation. City indicated it still plans to play its FA Cup match Friday against Swindon with assistant coach Rodolfo Borrell stepping in after Guardiola tested positive. The English Premier League champions said Guardiola was among 14 staff and seven first-team players “isolating for COVIDrelated reasons.” ... Burnley manager Sean Dyche tested positive and will miss the team’s FA Cup game this weekend against Huddersfield. Figure skating: French ice dancers Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron will not skate for a sixth European Championship title next week because they are wary of the coronavirus disrupting their Olympic preparations, the French ice sports federation said. Papadakis and Cizeron are skipping the Jan. 10-16 event in Estonia “to protect themselves from COVID,” the federation wrote on Twitter. Baseball: Former New York Mets acting general manager Zack Scott was acquitted of drunken-driving charges stemming from his arrest last August after he attended a fundraiser at team owner Steve Cohen’s house, his attorney announced.
Skiing: A men’s World Cup slalom race in Zagreb, Croatia, was stopped after 19 skiers started on a course that was muddy and ruled too dangerous to continue. The French team said Victor Muffat-Jeandet — a 2018 Olympic bronze medalist in the combined event — broke his right ankle when he skied out.
College football: Safety Patrick Fields, a three-year starter at Oklahoma, has moved on to Stanford as a graduate transfer. Fields has one year of playing eligibility remaining.
Obituary: Greg Robinson, who won two Super Bowl rings with the Denver Broncos and spent nearly four decades coaching in the NFL and college — including two years as defensive coordinator at San Jose State in 2014-15 — has died. He was 70.
Robinson’s wife, Laura, said he died Wednesday from a form of Alzheimer’s disease.
The soft-spoken Robinson also served as defensive coordinator for the New York Jets (1994) and Kansas City Chiefs (2001-03), but he attained his greatest success in six years with the Broncos (1995-2000) under Mike Shanahan. His defenses excelled as Denver won consecutive Super Bowls in 1997 and 1998.