The new season for the South Korean Football Championship kicks off Friday after a delay of more than two months due to the emerging Corona virus, but in special circumstances: "Peace and speech are forbidden among players on the field."
The tournament was due to start in late February, but the date was postponed due to the "Covid-19" epidemic. However, the round ball will return to turn in the country starting from tomorrow, provided that its matches are behind closed doors, and players will be prevented from celebrating after each goal, or even exchanging conversations and shaking hands with each other, in order to prevent the spread of the virus.
Instead of a traditional handshake before each match, players will be asked to bow to their peers, with a certain distance between them.
The sanitary measures will also be strict, as players and the coaching staff will be subjected to a body temperature test before the start of each match. In the event that a person is injured during the season, the club, where the positive situation and the teams that faced it, will have to submit to quarantine for two weeks, and subsequently cease competing throughout that period.
And if the countries immersed in the spherical map such as Belarus, Turkmenistan and Taiwan had defied the Corona virus and continued the activity of the game, South Korea, which is one of the countries provided in the football in Asia, will be the first balanced country to resume its activity since the almost complete cessation of mid-March to local football leagues after Corona virus outbreak emerging.
The South Korean Football Association has allowed its clubs to play experimental matches before the start of the season since April 11.
The opening match of the South Korean league, which includes 12 clubs, will bring together Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, the champion who oversees his Portuguese coach Jose Muraich, a former assistant to his famous citizen Jose Mourinho, with Suwon Samsung Bluewings Cup champion.
Jeonbuk took almost complete control of the domestic league by winning five titles in the last six seasons, and will be an extraordinary candidate to win the title this season as well.
As for his main rivals, Ulsan, who finished the last four seasons, is expected to be in one of the first four places.
- No football without words -
Although preventive measures are necessary for the return of competitions in a healthy condition, they have received criticism from players.
Commenting on the measures taken to launch the domestic league, Incheon United captain Kim Do-Hyuk said it would be almost impossible not to have chats between players during the matches.
"It is impossible not to speak to your teammates. If we cannot speak on the field, we cannot therefore play football," he said.
Sports activity is gradually returning to the Korean peninsula, where the baseball season started Tuesday behind closed doors, and the women's golf championship will be the first in this sport held around the world since the epidemic spread, when its activities start on May 14 in Yangzhou (east of Seoul).
South Korea was one of the countries hardest hit by the Coronavirus in late February, but the authorities succeeded in containing the epidemic through a comprehensive strategy that included testing for everyone who had contact with someone infected with "Covid-19".
The country announced on Wednesday that it had recorded only two new cases due to people coming from abroad, taking its total number to 10806 cases with 252 declared deaths.
This figure is modest compared to countries where tens of thousands of deaths have been recorded, such as the United States, Spain and Italy.
In light of the interruption of football competitions in most of the countries of the world, especially the five major European championships (Spain, Germany, England, France and Italy), the South Korean League sparked the interest of TV channels to broadcast live matches on the air, after it had just recently offered to return matches from previous years .
The League confirmed that ten foreign channels from China, Hong Kong and Croatia have obtained broadcasting rights next season, while companies in France, Germany, Italy, the United States and Australia have inquired about the matter.
The local league will broadcast its matches directly to the "YouTube" and Twitter account with graphs and comments in English for foreign fans.
The League League indicated that the return of spectators to the stands will be gradual as the government relaxes the restrictions of quarantine in the country.