FIH Pro League: Despite Coronavirus threat, matches to go on as per schedule
What's the story?
The International Hockey Federation (FIH) is keeping a keen and careful eye on the developments of the Coronavirus that has affected most parts of the world as the ongoing FIH Pro League requires teams to travel extensively due to the home and away format.
In case you didn't know
The Coronavirus outbreak has affected many tournaments and qualifying matches around the globe albeit till now, none of the fixtures of the Pro League have been put on hold except the ones in China.
FIH Communications Manager, Nicolas Maingot, clearly mentioned that there has been no decision to postpone any FIH Hockey Pro League match other than the China matches.
The Indian men's hockey side is also scheduled to travel to London for their first away games of the league. The men's team will face off with Great Britain on May 2 and 3 while the women's team will travel to the Netherlands and Germany for a test tour from April 11 to April 27.
The heart of the matter
China's home games against Australia and Belgium were earlier postponed by the FIH. The Chinese team is in South Africa since the outbreak of the Coronavirus, having decided to avoid returning home amidst the outbreak.
Here's what the FIH had to say on the issue of matches possibly getting postponed:
"The FIH keeps on monitoring the evolution of the situation closely and following the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO)"
"Also, we currently haven't been informed by Australia, USA or any of the European National Associations hosting FIH Pro League matches in the near future that their public authorities would have taken measures preventing these planned matches from being staged as well as scheduled. We will keep monitoring this as well".
What's next?
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) remains confident and positive about the conduction of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics while the Tokyo parliament has hinted at the possible postponing of the tournament.
All the countries and associations have been monitoring the Coronavirus outbreak carefully and it remains to be seen if it will, at all, have any impact on any other sporting event.