The President of the South African Football Association (SAFA) Danny Jordaan says no football matches will be played in the country between now and April 4 to try and control the spread of the coronavirus.
Jordaan says it will not be safe to even consider playing football matches behind closed doors.
Earlier this week, Premier Soccer League (PSL) chair Irvin Khoza announced the cancellation of all matches for the week, pending the outcome of a Board of Governors meeting set for Thursday.
Jordaan says several matches were played behind closed doors in Europe recently, but that exercise backfired.
“We see that we have inadequate provision for the protection of the player’s health that we should precede. Our position is that all matches must be postponed until we find a clear solution and most of the leagues say the fourth of April, we will make a further assessment.”
Meanwhile, the PSL will go ahead with its special Board of Governors meeting in Kempton Park, in Ekurhuleni, on Thursday morning.
On the video below, PSL briefs the media on coronavirus:
Banning in line with the President’s decision
SAFA’s chief medical officer Thulani Ngwenya says the decision to stop all football activities in the country is in line with the announcement made by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday.
“The state President has made SAFA to come to a position of suspending all football activities. The call is to curb or stop the spread of coronavirus because prevention is better than cure, and at the moment we are scared that we might not be in a position to deal with this if first world countries are really having difficulties in dealing with this matter.”
So far, the number of COVID-19 cases in South Africa has risen to 116 – with no deaths reported.
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