Coronavirus spreading through sport like the yips

Fans wear disposable face masks at the Premier League match between Burnley FC and Tottenham Hotspur at Turf Moor. Picture: Getty Images

England’s Premier League is considering a ban on over-70s attendees in case the dear old things get coronavirus and cark it.

The National Rugby League season starts this week. A replica sting on the infirm and the elderly will spell a little trouble for South Sydney Rabbitohs, whose long-toothed coach, Wayne Bennett, may need fake ID to get into the ground. Bennett has huffed and puffed and blown out his three-score-and-ten birthday candles on New Year’s Day.

Coronavirus is spreading through sport like the yips. The MCG on Sunday night may have reverberated to the sound of one hand clapping — Matthew Mott’s — if the T20 World Cup final had been held a week later. The NRL says spectator-less stadiums will be an extreme, last-resort measure, but pulling the pin on patrons is part of the contingency plan if the COVID-19 pandemic continues to escalate. No fans? No noise? No atmosphere? Let’s put the weekend’s most common reaction into print: the Sydney Roosters will barely notice the difference. Boom-tish.

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The over-70s ban on the EPL will be discussed on Monday at a meeting of British government officials, broadcasters and directors of various English sports. Forbidding the elderly will complicate matters for Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson. Bennett is a spring chicken by comparison. The 72-year-old Hodgson has told the BBC: “Whatever decision is made, you have to abide by.”

NBA megastar LeBron James has reacted to the possibility of his LA Lakers playing in empty stadiums by saying: “If I show up to the arena and there ain’t no fans in the crowd, then I ain’t playing.” He’s then done his very best to offend about 747 million people by adding: “This ain’t Europe.”

Golden State Warriors’ Steph Curry has been whisked away for tests after displaying flu-like symptoms. The NBA, NHL, MLB and MLS in America are all considering no locker room access for media, which begs a question for Australian sports journalists. Locker-room access: What exactly is that? Curry’s tests have revealed a condition no one could possibly have predicted. The flu.

In tennis, ball kids at the Indian Wells Masters this week will be wearing gloves. They will not be touching anything other than the balls, making the players get their own damn towels for a change. Spectators will be removed and pointed to the nearest hospital if they’re crook. One sneeze, you filthy buggers, and you’re out. Novak Djokovic may not last the first set if he starts complaining of his usual ailments. Italian Fabio Fognini, from the country that has become a coronavirus hotspot, will be getting a wide berth from his peers.

All Italian football matches will be spectator-less until April 3. Japan’s entire football J-League and the Swiss League have been suspended. Six Nations rugby matches, for men and women, have been canned. Sevens World Series rugby tournaments in Hong Kong and Singapore are postponed. Nepal’s cricket Everest Premier League, featuring Chris Gayle, is no more. The Chinese Formula One Grand Prix on April 19 has been ditched. And the season-opening Qatar MotoGP. And the Thailand MotoGP. All three US LPGA Tour events in Asia, which were carrying more than $5m in prizemoney, have gone kaput. The World Indoor Athletics Championships in China, the World Half-Marathon championships in Poland, the Paris Marathon and the Barcelona Marathon are all postponed.

The French Open tennis and Wimbledon … who knows?

At home, Hockey Australia has called off this week’s tours by the Kookaburras and Hockeyroos to Europe. Chief executive Matt Favier says: “We have been tracking the progress of the virus in Europe with the hope it could be contained. Unfortunately, the increase in the number of cases and the spread of the countries now impacted has led us to this decision.”

The NRL starts on Thursday night. The AFL starts the following week. The biggest upcoming international event is the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday. Anyone from Italy, anyone who has even been to Italy, perhaps anyone who has ever seen La Dolce Vita, perhaps anyone who owns a Ferrari, and especially anyone who works for the Ferrari F1 team — will be under scrutiny. The biggest health risk posed by the team’s employees used to be from the cigarette smoke they blew while casually sucking on their cancer sticks outside the team garage at Albert Park, leaning against a wall or a pile of tyres in their tight red slacks and bright red tracksuit tops and bright red shoes. Daniel Ricciardo says the race cannot be held without The Prancing Horse.

Unfortunately, F1 managing director of motorsport, Ross Brawn, agrees with Ricciardo. “If a team is prevented from entering a country, we can’t have a race,” he said. “Not a Formula One world championship race, anyway, because that would be unfair.

“Obviously if a team makes its own choice not to go to a race, that’s their decision. But where a team is prevented from going to a race because of a decision of the country then it’s difficult to have a fair competition.”

Ricciardo’s claim of “a hollow victory” in a Ferrari-less race doesn’t make sense. We get the glamour and the history. But Ferrari hasn’t won the drivers’ championship since 2007. It hasn’t won the constructors’ championship since 2008. Winning without Mercedes on the grid may feel shallow. Ferrari’s appearance is hardly the be all and end all. The show must go on, surely, or as close to the show as we can get. The US Masters golf has gone on without Tiger Woods. The Australian Open tennis has survived without Rafael Nadal. Ferrari’s Modena headquarters are in one of the newly quarantined parts of northern Italy. All those glammed-up souls in red shoes, pants and tracksuit tops will get an even wider berth than Fognini. Which is saying something.