Guinea has become the third African country within 24 hours to declare a premature end to their soccer season in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, following on the heels of Angola and Kenya.
The season, which started in October, had only reached the halfway stage and was due to be completed in June.
“We don’t know when this pandemic will go away. With the approach of the rainy season and the presence of the pandemic, we have decided that we have to stop the championship,” President of the Guinean Professional Football League, Mathurin Bangoura, told reporters on Friday.
No champions will be crowned but the top four in the standings at the time of the league’s suspension will compete in next season’s continental competitions – the African Champions League and the African Confederation Cup.
There will also be no promotion or relegation.
Mauritius became the first African country earlier this month to call a halt to its season because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Kenya and Angola followed, but clubs in Madagascar voted to attempt to carry on after a meeting on Thursday.
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) have told member associations to set a May 5 deadline to reveal whether they intend to continue with their domestic programmes or call an end to their respective seasons.
Below is a report on some of the sporting events that have been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic:
Below are major sports events around the world that have been hit by the coronavirus outbreak:
Olympics
* The Tokyo 2020 Olympics torch lighting ceremony in ancient Olympia was held without spectators.
* The Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC) suspended the remainder of the torch relay through the country to avoid attracting crowds.
Olympic trials
* US Olympic trials for wrestling, originally scheduled for April 4-5 at Penn State University, were postponed.
* US Rowing postponed its Olympic team trials and will not run a national team event for 30 days.
* US Olympic diving trials, which were scheduled for April 3-5 in Tucson, Arizona, were postponed. All USA Diving events postponed for next 30 days.
North America
* The NBA has suspended its season.
* The NHL has suspended its season.
* The MLB will delay its 2020 season’s opening day of March 26 by at least two weeks. It said Spring Training camps were also suspended.
Athletics
* The World Athletics Indoor Championships (Nanjing; March 13-15) were postponed. They will be held in the same city from March 19-21, 2021.
* The Paris and Barcelona marathons were postponed.
* The annual London marathon,, which was due to take place on April 26 was postponed to Oct. 4.
* The race walking team championship scheduled for May 2-3 in Minsk was postponed.
Soccer
* All elite soccer matches in England, including the Premier League, Football League (EFL) and Women’s Super League (WSL), were suspended until April 4.
However, the National League – the fifth-tier of English football – said all its weekend’s matches will go ahead, including the lower level Conference North and South divisions.
* The German Football League (DFL) called off matches scheduled for March 13-15 in the Bundesliga and second-tier Bundesliga 2. They recommended that both leagues be suspended until April 2.
* UEFA postponed all Champions League and Europa League matches due to take place next week.
* The Confederation of African Football has postponed two rounds of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers scheduled for March 25-31.
* CONCACAF suspended all competitions scheduled to take place over the next 30 days, including the Champions League and men’s Olympic qualifiers.
* The Paraguayan FA has suspended all games until March 24 and recommended that clubs stop collective training sessions.
* The Colombian league has suspended all tournaments until further notice.
* The Chilean FA ordered all games due to be played between March 19 and April 19 take place without fans.
* The top two tiers of French football — Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 — have been suspended until further notice.
* All soccer matches in Spain’s top two divisions were postponed for two weeks.
* England’s friendly internationals against Italy and Denmark at Wembley on March 27 and 31 will not take place, while Denmark cancelled their March 27 friendly against the Faroe Islands.
* The Norwegian Football Federation said it did not plan to hold Norway’s Euro 2020 playoff match against Serbia that was scheduled for March 26.
* Poland’s soccer league has postponed all games at least until the end of March. The resumption date is expected to be announced next week.
* US Major League Soccer has suspended its season.
* US Soccer’s Open Cup Committee has suspended its 2020 Lamar Hunt US Open Cup.
* All soccer in the Netherlands was suspended until the end of March. The national team cancelled their Euros warm-up matches against the United States (March 26) and Spain (March 29).
* FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation have agreed to postpone Asian World Cup qualifying matches in March and June.
* FIFA said South American qualifying matches between March 23-31 for the 2022 World Cup were postponed.
* Bundesliga: Borussia Moenchengladbach v Cologne (March 11) was played without fans. RB Leipzig v SC Freiburg and Borussia Dortmund v Schalke 04 (both March 14) will be played in empty stadiums.
* Spain’s Copa del Rey final between Athletic Bilbao and Real Sociedad (Seville; April 18) was postponed.
* New seasons in the Chinese, Japanese and South Korean leagues were postponed.
* A four-team event in Doha featuring Croatia, Portugal, Belgium and Switzerland (March 26-30) was cancelled.
* A friendly between Germany and Italy (Nuremberg; March 31) will take place without fans.
* Tickets are not being sold for the Euro 2020 qualifying playoff semi-finals between Bulgaria and Hungary and Bosnia and Northern Ireland.
* Asian Champions League: Matches involving Chinese clubs Guangzhou Evergrande, Shanghai Shenhua and Shanghai SIPG were postponed. The start of the knockout rounds was moved back to September.
* The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) ordered all games due to be played in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo to take place without fans until further notice.
Basketball
* Euroleague Basketball suspended all 2019-20 EuroLeague, EuroCup and Euroleague Next Generation Tournament games.
Motorsport
* Formula One have cancelled the Australian Grand Prix and postponed the next three races in Bahrain, Vietnam and China.
They hope to start the season in Europe at the end of May, putting the Dutch and Spanish races currently scheduled for May 3 and 10 in Zandvoort and Barcelona in doubt.
* Four rounds of the MotoGP season in Qatar, Thailand, Texas and Argentina will not go ahead as scheduled.
* NASCAR races at the Atlanta Motor Speedway (March 15) and Homestead-Miami Speedway (March 22) will be held without fans.
* Round four of the World Rally Championship in Argentina that was scheduled for April 23-26 has been postponed.
* The World Rallycross Championship opener in Catalunya-Barcelona scheduled for April 18-19 has been postponed.
Tennis
* The ATP suspended its professional men’s tennis tour for six weeks after the Miami Open (March 23-April 5) was cancelled.
* The Fed Cup finals (Budapest; April 14-19) were postponed.
* The BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells was cancelled.
* The WTA said its events in Mexico and Colombia in March and April would not be held. The Xi’an Open and Kunming Open had already been cancelled.
Rugby
* Four Six Nations matches were postponed.
* The Singapore and Hong Kong legs of the World Rugby Sevens Series were postponed from April to October.
* Rugby Europe announced a suspension of all its matches and tournaments from March 13-April 15.
* France’s rugby federation said on Friday that it was suspending all its competitions.
* The Premiership Rugby Cup final on Sunday (March 15) has been postponed.
Rowing
* Two World Rowing Cups and the European Olympic Qualification Regatta, all scheduled for Italy, were cancelled.
Sailing
* SailGP has canceled its San Francisco event scheduled for May 2-3.
Table tennis
* The world championships in South Korea, were pushed back provisionally from March to June.
Winter sports
* The International skiing federation cancelled the final races of the men’s Alpine skiing.
* The World Cup finals in Cortina were cancelled along with the last three women’s races in Are.
* The women’s world ice hockey championships in Canada were cancelled.
* The Speed skating world championships in Seoul have been postponed until at least October.
* The March 16-22 world figure skating championships in Montreal were cancelled.
Golf
* The year’s first major, the Masters, has been postponed from April 9-12 to ‘some later date’.
* The Players Championship in Florida was cancelled after the first round. The next three PGA events have also been scrapped.
* The Honda LPGA Thailand event and the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore were cancelled.
* The Indian Open, the Maybank Championship in Kuala Lumpur and the China Open have all been postponed.
Cycling
* The final two stages of the UAE Tour were cancelled after two Italian participants tested positive.
* The Paris-Nice cycling race will end a day early after the eighth stage into Nice was cancelled.
* The Giro d’Italia, scheduled to start in Budapest, Hungary on May 9, has been postponed.
Baseball
* The final qualification tournament in Taiwan for the Olympics was put back from April to June 17-21, while the March 22-26 qualification event in Arizona was postponed.
* Japan’s professional league postponed the start of the season.
Cricket
* Australia’s three-match one-day series against New Zealand in Sydney and Hobart is being held without fans.
* The start of the Indian Premier League Twenty20 tournament, scheduled for March 29, has been postponed until April 15.
* The cricket boards of India and South Africa agreed to reschedule the ongoing three-match one-day international series to a later date. The first match on March 12 was washed out.
* England’s two-match test series in Sri Lanka that was scheduled to start on March 19 has been postponed.
Judo
* The International Judo Federation cancelled all Olympic qualification events through to the end of April.
Gymnastics
* The All-Around World Cup (Stuttgart; March 20-22) was cancelled.
Handball
* The International Handball Federation has postponed all competitions in March, April and June.
* The European Handball Federation said matches until April 12 will not be held as scheduled.
Squash
* The Professional Squash Association said World Tour and Challenger Tour events taking place up to and including the week commencing April 27 will not take place.
Badminton
* The Badminton World Federation has cancelled various events, including the US Open and two tournaments scheduled for July and September.
