End of suspense. After several days of questioning, the decision fell on Monday morning. The match Paris SG-Dortmund, counting for the knockout stages of the Champions League, scheduled for Wednesday at the Parc des Princes, will be held behind closed doors because of the Coronavirus. Another anticipated and confirmed decision: the last meeting of the XV of France in the Six Nations Tournament against Ireland, Saturday evening at the Stade de France, has been postponed to a later date, in this case to October 31 , if the virus allows it… Another strong announcement at the start of this week: the Indian Wells Tennis Masters 1000 was simply deleted after a case of coronavirus was identified in this part of California.
Each day, the list of events, tests and matches affected continues to grow, upsetting the agendas and plunging the sport into a real problem as to the course of its long-term competitions. Finding new available dates to reschedule postponed matches or entire championship days is a real headache in already overloaded calendars with no downtime. Without speaking of course of the economic stake, professional sport living largely of the rights regulated by televisions (and which thus require that the show continues) and of the receipts of ticket office. PSG, which will therefore be deprived of its supporters for its capital match against Dortmund, Wednesday (1-2 defeat in the first leg in Germany), thus estimates at 6 million euros "live" its losses in ticket office, boxes and catering , with this European match played without any spectators.
After a large meeting at the Ministry of Sports on Monday, Roxana Maracineanu advocated in camera as an "organizing doctrine" for competitions to deal with the coronavirus. A direct response to the ban on gatherings of more than 1,000 people, including outside, announced Sunday evening by the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran.
Sporting continuity
"We are in an exceptional moment ," said the minister. Naturally, the organizers will have to adapt to the new rules by limiting their gauges to 1000 people, counting the participants or by preferring the camera when it is made possible . " And to add: " I will bring together tomorrow all the professional leagues, federations and broadcasters in the ministry to take stock of the situation. We work daily with the organizers to discuss how to compensate the spectators who bought their tickets. In this period, the camera can become our doctrine for organizing competitions and professional sports. What I recommend is sporting continuity, especially for qualifying competitions at the Tokyo Olympics . "
Probably not unhappy to escape for now the outright cancellation of their championship (in Italy, all sporting activities, including Serie A, are interrupted until April 3), football and rugby French (but also basketball and handball), must prepare to live, at least until April 15, matches with stands without spectators or atmosphere.