Italy sports ban set for extension
Italy’s sports minister said he will propose extending the ban on all competitions to the whole of April in an effort to contain the novel coronavirus.
The death toll from Covid-19 rose past 10,000 in Italy on Saturday, a figure that made an extension of a national lockdown almost certain.
“Re-starting matches ... is unrealistic. Tomorrow I will propose to extend the ban on all sports competitions, of all levels and types, to the whole of April,” Vincenzo Spadafora told daily la Repubblica in an interview.
Italy’s top-flight Serie A soccer league has been suspended since March 9 and the Euro 2020 Championship was postponed for a year on March 17.
Spadafora said that the suspension should be extended to all training, which has so far not been banned, amid uncertainty over when the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics will be held.
The minister added that he would draw up a plan worth 400 million euros (US$446 million) for sports associations and amateur clubs and called on Serie A to adopt “a serious willingness to change”. He did not elaborate.
“After this crisis, nothing can be like before,” he said.
On Saturday, players and coach Maurizio Sarri of Juventus agreed on a wage reduction that will save the Italian champion 90 million euros.
Sarri and the first-team players have agreed what amounts to a four-month pay reduction to help Italy’s most successful club during the crisis.
The effective one-third cut to the players’ annual salaries will mean a huge drop in wages for a squad headed by marquee Portuguese player Cristiano Ronaldo, the best-paid footballer in Italy who is reported to earn 31 million euros a year.
The agreement comes at a time when many clubs around Europe have had to cut wage bills because of the dramatic impact of matches having had to be postponed or played behind closed doors due to the spread of the virus.
“The economic and financial effects of the understanding reached are positive for about 90 million euros for the 2019/2020 financial year”, Juventus said in a statement.
“The understanding provides for the reduction of the compensation for an amount equal to the monthly payments of March, April, May and June 2020.”
The Turin-based club, in one of the hardest-hit regions, has suffered in recent weeks with three of its players having tested positive for the virus — forward Paulo Dybala, defender Daniele Rugani and midfielder Blaise Matuidi.
Juventus, seeking a ninth successive title, leads the league by one point from Lazio with 12 games remaining.
The agreement comes the day after leading Spanish club Atletico Madrid took the decision to cut the wages of its staff, including the players, to ease the financial burden on the club.
Atletico joined La Liga rival Barcelona, which imposed a compulsory wage reduction on its players during the period of lockdown.
German Bundesliga clubs Borussia Moenchengladbach and Borussia Dortmund have also said their players would forego some of their salary.
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