Coronavirus spectre hanging over domestic sport

It has wreaked havoc in international sport, now the spectre of the coronavirus outbreak is hanging over sporting fields in Australia.

The AFL’s visit to Shanghai in 2019, which is unlikely to be repeated this year

It has wreaked havoc in international sport, now the spectre of the coronavirus outbreak is hanging over sporting fields in Australia.

The AFL’s annual foray into China, the competition match between Port Adelaide and St Kilda in Shanghai on May 31, is unlikely to go ahead. And the NRL has set up a taskforce to plan for potential disruption to the 2020 season.

Meanwhile, Australia’s nati­onal baseball side have their path to the Tokyo Games clogged by coronavirus after a qualifying tournament was postponed.

Australia were slated to travel to Taiwan to take part in a last-chance Olympic qualifier on April 1-5. That six-team event, also involving the hosts along with China, the Netherlands, and the second and third teams from this month’s American Olympic qualifying tournament, has been moved to June 17-21.

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Despite the postponement of Formula One’s Chinese Grand Prix and concerns over the Bahrain and Vietnam races, organisers of the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 15 insist they are “all systems go”.

Grand Prix Corporation CEO Andrew Westacott said organis­ers were “working collaboratively with health agencies and rel­ated government and emergen­cy service organisations in addr­essing (the coronavirus) matter.

“We continue to monitor the situation … At this stage there is no indication of further travel bans, nor is there any indication that Formula 1 and the teams will not be arriving as usual,” he said.

The AFL has drawn up plans to switch the Shanghai match to Cazaly Stadium in Cairns, with Port chairman David Koch conceding on Monday that a trip to China is unlikely.

“There are contingency plans with the AFL and as to a final decision we have got to do it in the very near future,” Koch said. “We are taking advice from the federal government. But when you see the spread of the virus at the moment to other countries you would think that there is more of a chance of it not going ahead.”

NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg said his organisation was monitoring the situation.

“We have a small working group at the NRL, led primarily by our chief medical officer, who is in contact with the federal government and the Australian Institute of Sport,” Greenberg said.

“We are watching all those trends and if things change, we will deal with it.” The virus has already bitten deep into international sport, with dozens of events postponed, moved or cancelled. Asian and European football competitions have been affected along with Europe’s Six Nations rugby tournament.

Thailand’s MotoGP was postponed on Monday, a day after the season-opening Qatar race was cancelled.