Shanghai (AFP)
The Chinese basketball championship will resume on June 20 after a hiatus of nearly five months due to the coronavirus pandemic, becoming the first major sport to restart in the country, the Chinese Basketball Federation announced on Thursday on the social network Weibo.
"The CBA championship will resume on June 20 and we have entered the concrete phase of preparations," announced the federation.
The rest of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) season, suspended since February due to the Covid-19 epidemic, will be played in a particular format: the twenty teams will be divided into two groups and will only play in two places, at Qingdao, a seaside town in the east of the country, and in Dongguan (south).
According to several Chinese media, the meetings should take place behind closed doors.
Some foreign players may not be able to join their team, however, as China still prohibits most foreign nationals from entering the country due to the Covid-19.
Earlier this week, ex-NBA player Jeremy Lin, now leader of Beijing Shougang, pleaded for a recovery as quickly as possible.
"It doesn't matter if the matches are played in empty halls," said the 31-year-old American, former star player of the New York Knicks where he was revealed in 2012. "We just want to play and the fans can watch the matches on TV or online. "
The federation had announced in January the suspension of all matches from February 1, after the appearance of the first cases of Covid-19 in Wuhan, the starting point of the pandemic.
This has practically disappeared in China, where only a handful of new cases are now recorded each day.
© 2020 AFP