COVID-19: South Korea to kick off football season on May 8
Defending champions Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors to feature in opening game
Seoul: The South Korean men’s football season will kick off on May 8 after more than two months of delay due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Korea Professional Football League (K League) announced Friday that its top-flight K League 1 and the second-tier K League 2 will both begin their 2020 season on May 8.
The opening match will see three-time defending champions Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors host Suwon Samsung Bluewings at Jeonju World Cup Stadium in Jeonju, 240 kilometers south of Seoul.
The season was supposed to start on February 29 but had to be postponed after the coronavirus pandemic broke out in South Korea. The decision to restart the season was arrived at during the league’s meeting with club representatives at the league headquarters in Seoul.
The news comes a day after South Korean health authorities said that they were preparing for a possible second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic later this year in conjunction with the flu season.
Yoon Tae-ho, an officer of disinfection at the Central Disaster Management headquarters, told a press briefing that the health authorities were preparing medical supplies and facilities for the second wave, reports Xinhua.
Yoon said the COVID-19, a flu-like virus, could highly likely spread again in conjunction with the flu season, noting that a massive cluster infection could possibly happen more harshly than what happened in Daegu, the epicentre of the pandemic in South Korea.