Buenos Aires, June 7 (IANS) Argentinian President Alberto Fernandez has warned against a proposal to hold all of the country’s first division football matches at a single provincial venue, believing the move could hasten the spread of COVID-19 instead of countering it.
Local media outlets have reported that the Argentinian Football Association (AFA) and the Superliga Argentina are considering a plan to choose a city with little or no coronavirus cases as their temporary home, Xinhua news agency reported.
“Everything is possible. But you have to understand that if I take a player out of Buenos Aires and send him to Formosa (around 1,100km north of Buenos Aires), where there hasn’t been a case, there is a danger of introducing the virus there,” Fernandez told television channel TyC Sports.
“Let’s understand one thing: I can get tested today and give a negative result. I can repeat it tomorrow and again test negative. But maybe the day after tomorrow I will test positive. It is not all that simple. This is a fight against the unknown. Now we are certain of nothing.”
Argentinian football was suspended on March 17 and the AFA has since canceled the remainder of the 2019-20 season. It has not indicated when competitions will restart.
Fernandez added that the government would only sanction the sport’s return when there was no risk to the health of those involved.
Argentina has around 22,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, more than 600 of which have been fatal, according to official figures.
–IANS
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