Seoul (AFP)

Table tennis worlds adjourned, football matches postponed or behind closed doors: the coronavirus epidemic continued on Tuesday to upset the Asian sports calendar, mainly in Japan and South Korea, a few months before the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

In the Japanese archipelago, the Japanese Football Federation has announced the postponement of all scheduled matches until March 15, after initially announcing the postponement of seven matches in its National Cup scheduled for Wednesday.

The J-League has ensured "maximum cooperation" in preventive measures taken in response to government instructions to limit gatherings of people as much as possible to avoid mass contagion to a period deemed critical by infectious disease specialists.

These drastic measures come five months before the Tokyo Olympics, which must begin on July 24.

In Japan, the coronavirus has so far infected 691 people, including four fatally, passengers on the liner Diamond Princess, quarantined near the port of Yokohama, and 156 others in different provinces of the archipelago.

In South Korea, the Table Tennis Team World Championships, scheduled to take place next month in the South Korean city of Busan, were also postponed on Tuesday due to inflation in coronavirus cases.

The competition, originally scheduled for March 22-29, has been rescheduled from June 21-28, according to a still tentative schedule, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) said in a statement.

As for football, two matches of the Asian Champions League scheduled for next week will be played behind closed doors.

The two Korean teams involved, FC Seoul and Ulsan, said the decision was made "at the request of their national federation".

The other South Korean teams involved in the competition, Jeonbuk and the Suwon Bluewings, will only play their next home matches in April and are therefore not affected by the measure.

- Reports and in camera -

As of Monday, the kickoff of the South Korean football championship had already been postponed. The volleyball, basketball and handball federations have taken similar steps.

South Korean health officials announced 60 new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday, bringing the total number of people infected with the disease to 893.

This is the highest level outside mainland China, where the coronavirus appeared in December. Eight South Korean nationals died.

The measures unveiled Tuesday in Japan and South Korea follow many announcements in the same direction in recent days.

Several matches in the Italian football championship were postponed last weekend, and some matches for the next day will be held behind closed doors.

In China, the epicenter of the epidemic, the football championship which was to start on February 22 has been postponed as well as "competitions of all types and at all levels".

Formula 1, rugby, skiing and golf have also seen their calendar turned upside down by the epidemic.

© 2020 AFP