Rome (AFP)

While the number of cases of contamination with the new coronavirus now exceeds 130 in Italy, the consequences are felt in the world of sport with in particular the postponement of four Serie A matches.

At the end of the morning, the club of Torino indeed announced the postponement to a later date of its match envisaged at 15:00 against Parma, counting for the 25th day of the championship of Italy.

This postponement was in addition to those announced late Saturday for three other Serie A matches originally scheduled for this Sunday: Atalanta Bergamo-Sassuolo, Hellas Verona-Cagliari and Inter Milan-Sampdoria Genoa.

It is therefore almost half of this 25th day which has been postponed due to the progression of the new coronavirus in the Peninsula.

AC Milan has also announced the postponement, for the same reasons, of the championship match of its female team against Fiorentina.

But elite football is not the only sport affected and in the morning, the Italian Olympic Committee (Cuneo) had indicated that it had asked, on instructions from the government, the postponement of all the sports competitions scheduled for Sunday in the Lombardy and Veneto.

These two regions in the north of the country are those where the majority of new infections have been identified. Turin, where the Serie A match postponed to Sunday was to be played, is in the Piedmont region, also in northern Italy. Six cases of new coronavirus have been confirmed there.

In rugby, the match of the Women's Six Nations Tournament between Italy and Scotland, scheduled for Sunday in Legnano in Lombardy, a few kilometers north of Milan, has also been postponed to a date that remains to be defined.

- Inter in camera? -

On Saturday, a similar decision was made for the Serie B (2nd div.) Football match Ascoli-Cremonese and for several Serie C (3rd div.) Matches.

And the Italian sports media are now wondering about the rest of the calendar, very busy especially for the football teams in the north of the country, Inter Milan at the head.

The Milanese club must receive Thursday the Bulgarians from Ludogorets in the round of 16 return from the Europa League and the Gazzetta dello Sport puts forward the hypothesis of a match organized behind closed doors, even on neutral ground.

Next week, two Serie A matches are also scheduled in the regions most affected by the new coronavirus: AC Milan-Genoa Sunday at 6:00 p.m. and the clash of the championship between Juventus and Inter Sunday at 8:45 p.m.

Faced with the difficulty of finding available dates for these matches if they were to be postponed, the Gazzetta also mentions the possibility of playing them behind closed doors.

The next Champions League matches involving Italian clubs are however not at risk for the moment, but the ESPN television channel reports that Lionel Messi and the Barcelonans should be subjected to examinations upon their arrival in Naples before the C1 match between the two teams on Tuesday.

The temperature of all members of the delegation should be checked and, if it was too high, additional tests would be performed at the hospital.

A dozen cities in northern Italy are under quarantine on Sunday, with entry and exit banned, and the number of cases of new coronavirus now stands at 132, according to authorities. Two people died in Italy due to illness.

© 2020 AFP