Football Federation Australia (FFA) has today announced a postponement of the final rounds of the Hyundai A-League 2019/2020 season, effective immediately.
The decision is the latest in a series of measures introduced by FFA in response to the ongoing spread of COVID-19 and comes with the unanimous support of all Hyundai A-League clubs.
“To get so close to completing the competition, only to pull up a few weeks short, has been heartbreaking for the players, clubs and fans. That said, the health and safety of our fans, players, volunteers and staff has always been the overriding consideration for us,” FFA CEO, James Johnson, said.
“As each passing day raises additional concerns… it is imperative that we follow the lead of Governments at National and State level and take the necessary precautionary and proactive measures to play our part in preventing the spread and impact of COVID-19.”
The first Sydney derby was played in an empty stadium. Source: Getty Images.
FFA will review the situation over the coming weeks with a further formal status assessment now scheduled for April 22nd.
The goal at this stage is to reschedule games as soon as it is reasonably possible to do so in order to complete the season.
The clubs and players have indicated to FFA that they will be ready to continue should the competition be able to resume.
UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Felipe González Morales, has criticised the actions of authorities at the Greek-Turkish border and called on Greece to take ‘immediate action’ to end the violence against migrants and asylum seekers.
Mr Morales expressed alarm at the reports of assaults and violence against asylum seekers by Greek security officers and unidentified armed men aiming to push them back to the Turkish side of the border.
“I am very concerned about the reported push backs of asylum seekers and migrants, which constitutes a violation of the prohibition of collective expulsions and the principle of non-refoulement,” Mr Morales said.
“Greece has the responsibility to ensure that migrants and those assisting them are protected from threats and attacks. The authorities should condemn promptly and ensure accountability for any such acts.”
Clashes erupted on the Greek-Turkish land border, where refugees and migrants hurled stones as Greek riot police fired tear gas. Photo by Nick Paleologos.
On March 1, 2020, Greece decided to suspend access to asylum application for 30 days for individuals who have crossed the border irregularly. These individuals would be returned to the country they arrived from or to their country of origin without registration or individual assessment.
“Greece should immediately reverse its decision on the suspension of asylum application which has no legal basis in international human rights law. The right to individual assessment is the cornerstone of human rights and refugee protection. It cannot be put on hold,” the UN expert said.
“Returning people without due process will inevitably result in cases of refoulement to situations where they may face the risk of death, torture, ill-treatment, persecution or other irreparable harm.”
Migrants have set up makeshift camps at the Greek-Turkish border. Source: Associated Press.
The Special Rapporteur has contacted the Government of Greece about his concerns regarding the situation of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees at the Turkish-Greek border.
Relevant institutions of the European Union and the Government of Turkey were also notified.
The European Union can start membership negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia, according to a draft decision by the bloc’s 27 member states seen by Reuters on Monday and due to be finalised this week.
If approved as expected, the agreement would end two years of delays and signal new momentum for all six Western Balkan countries – Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Albania, Bosnia and North Macedonia – seeking to join the EU.
North Macedonia and Albania had seen their hopes dashed last year as France and the Netherlands sounded scepticism over their track records on democracy and fighting corruption, fearful of allowing new members in at a time when the EU’s cohesion was already damaged by Britain’s departure from the bloc.
But Paris and The Hague eased their objections last month and the plans to allow talks to start have gained momentum despite the coronavirus crisis, with Brussels eager to show its determination to bring the Balkans into the EU fold.
“I don’t think what is happening (with coronavirus) is going to alter the decision of the member states,” EU Foreign Policy Chief, Josep Borrell, told the media on Friday.
EU Foreign Policy Chief, Josep Borrell, said the decision will not be delayed due to the coronavirus outbreak. Source: Al Jazeera.
Borrell said he also telephoned Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to reassure him of the EU’s support, after Vucic praised China for its help in fighting coronavirus in Serbia.
Greece was still not on board before the weekend with the decision, which requires unanimity of all EU members. But diplomatic sources said Athens has given its approval after the latest draft included stronger language on protecting Greek and other national minorities in Albania.
If no country objects, the decision is expected to be formally adopted by the 27 EU members’ Europe ministers at mid-week, the sources added.
“It’s a testing time for Europe. The EU needs to show that it maintains its capacity to act amidst the coronavirus crisis. That’s also why we were able to find an agreement on enlargement now. It proves that the EU is still working and delivering,” a senior EU diplomat told Reuters on Monday.
EU and Balkan leaders are due to hold a summit in Zagreb in May in a show of support for the six countries of the region.
The Australian sporting world has been hit by two of the biggest announcements yet. Not only has the NRL confirmed that the 2020 season has been suspended indefinitely, but Australia’s Olympic athletes have been told to prepare for the Games to be postponed to 2021.
NRL 2020 season shut down:
The suspension of the NRL 2020 season just two rounds in, came at a press conference this evening as ARL Chief Peter V’landys lamented a “deeply sad day” for the game.
“As we said from the outset, the paramount consideration in our decision-making process has always been the safety and health of our players,” Mr V’landys said.
“Unfortunately, that’s taken a dramatic turn today. Our pandemic and biosecurity expert have said that due to the rapid rate of infection, we can no longer guarantee the safety of our players to continue to play.
“Accordingly, we are suspending the season. We aren’t going to put a time period to the suspension, we are going to look at every available option to us to recommence the season… every option is still on the table.”
NRL bosses Peter V’Landys and Todd Greenberg said the situation had changed significantly in the past 24 hours. Source: AAP.
This decision will leave NRL clubs in crisis, with the competition and clubs facing financial ruin.
“It’s catastrophic. I don’t think we’ve ever come across a financial crisis like this,” Mr V’landys continued.
“We’re all affected. We’ve led by example by cutting our expenditure immediately and we’re hoping the clubs will do the same very quickly. We’ll sit down with the players in the next week to see how they’re affected.”
Australia will not send athletes to the Tokyo Olympics 2020:
The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) held an emergency teleconference on Monday morning and unanimously agreed a team could not be assembled for the 2020 Olympics given the current situation at home and abroad.
AOC Chief Executive, Matt Carroll, said the decision was made without waiting for advice from the International Olympic Committee due to changing circumstances with the pandemic in recent days.
AOC Chief Executive, Matt Carroll, made the decision this morning.
“We’ve had to make a call now because of the situation here in Australia and other parts of the world. But the IOC is still working through their final decision-making,” Mr Carroll told reporters in Sydney on Monday.
“The athletes desperately want to go to the Games, but they also take on board their own personal health. We need to give our athletes that certainty and that’s what we’ve done.”
Carroll’s comments came after Canada announced it would not send its team to the Olympics and Paralympics in the summer of 2020.
Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has called panic buying ‘ridiculous’ and ‘un-Australian.’ Prime Minister of Greece Kyriakos Mitsotakis agreed, saying ‘panic is just as dangerous as the disease.’
And yet panic buying continued to sweep parts of Greece and Australia over the weekend, with many shoppers descending on stores to empty the shelves of pasta, rice, meat, toilet paper, soap and other essential items.
People have been queuing outside supermarkets across Australia. Source: ABC News.
Why is this still happening?
Psychologists and behaviour scientists have finally weighed in on the issue, calling panic buying a ‘human and natural response to a stressful situation.’
In fact, Dr Dimitrios Tsivrikos, an established academic and practitioner in business and consumer psychology at the University College London, said that when people feel uncertain, they tend to focus on things which bring them certainty.
“With natural disasters you usually know it is going to happen and that it will last a couple of days, so you can prepare by being somewhat rational with what you buy,” Dr Tsivrikos said in an interview with Sky News.
“But with a public health issue such as the coronavirus pandemic, we usually have no idea about the time or intensity. And then we get messages on a daily basis that we should go into panic mode, which then forces us to buy into more than we need to. It’s our only tool of control.”
Toilet paper has been one of the products most in demand. Source: ABC News.
Dr Tsivrikos also addressed the issue of toilet paper hoarding. He said that because toilet paper has a longer shelf-life than many other food items, and features prominently in shopping aisles, people are psychologically drawn to it.
“The bigger they look on the shelves, the more important we think they are,” he said.
“Most of us don’t have the ability to make new vaccines or enact new policies. But the one action that we can control, that feels like we are doing something, is to stock up on supplies.”
But what can be done to stop these actions?
Australian supermarkets such as Coles, Woolworths and Aldi, are all implementing limits of two items from any single category on most packaged products. This includes things such as mince, pasta, flour, rice, paper towels, toilet paper and hand sanitisers.
But it might be time to take inspiration from Danish supermarket, Rotunden, instead. They used a clever pricing trick to stop local shoppers from panic buying and hoarding.
In a post which went viral on Twitter, the supermarket was seen to be selling one bottle of hand sanitiser for $4.09 AUD, while two bottles would cost the shopper $95 AUD.
A supermarket in Denmark got tired of people hoarding hand sanitizer, so came up with their own way of stopping it.
1 bottle kr40 (€5.50) 2 bottles kr1000 (€134.00) each bottle.
In a statement defending their decision, the supermarket wrote: “We have a great responsibility to keep the business running, and we can only do that with everyone’s help and understanding.”
The decision has worked a treat, with customers praising Rotunden for giving people less of an incentive to hoard by making multiple purchases more expensive rather than cheaper.
Here’s hoping the technique can be implemented in Australia and Greece soon.
Spokesman of the National Health Organisation and Professor for Infectious Diseases, Sotiris Tsiodras, was criticised on Sunday for chanting in church during a mass that was supposed to be held behind closed doors with only the clergy and helpers.
As a practicing Greek Orthodox, Tsiodras chants every Sunday at a church in the northern Athens suburb of Kifissia, but on this occasion he attended the special Divine Liturgy of the Crucifixion held at the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Spatos, Attica.
Greek Government spokesman, Sotiris Tsiodras, chanting during a church service on Sunday. Source: enikos.gr.
The move triggered outrage on Twitter with some supporting Mr Tsiodras because he functioned as a chanter before the coronavirus outbreak, whilst others criticised him for not setting an example of what he was “preaching.”
“The majority of my friends have said they are struggling to keep the elderly inside as they don’t understand why they can’t go to church anymore. Today, they keep saying ‘but look the doctor is going’,” writes Twitter user @Miltos.
Έχω μιλήσει με δεκάδες φίλους αυτές τις μέρες οι περισσότεροι προσπαθούν να κρατήσουν με νύχια και με δόντια ηλικιωμένους που δεν καταλαβαίνουν ότι δεν πρέπει να μη βγαίνουν έξω και να μην πηγαίνουν εκκλησία. Σήμερα όλοι αυτοί λένε "να, πηγαίνει και ο γιατρός".
In response to another Twitter user who tagged him in a post with the hashtag “We Chant At Home,” Mr Tsiodras wrote that he had special permission to enter the church and was the only person within 1000 square metres. He also accused the user of “racism.”
A day earlier, he almost broke down during the Government’s daily briefing as he appealed to Greeks to stay home in order to protect “our mothers and fathers, our grandparents” from the pandemic.
The public’s criticism comes in the face of the Greek Government’s decision to close churches to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
At times like this when the coronavirus pandemic is sweeping across the globe, we need some happy news. Luckily for us, the World Happiness Report for 2020 has just been released.
The survey ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be and this year, both Greece and Australia have placed 77th and 12th respectively.
The World Happiness Report is released annually.
That’s a huge improvement in the rankings for Greece, having placed 82nd in 2019. Whilst Australia has dropped one place from 11th last year.
For the third year in a row, Finland has topped the list as the happiest country in the world, with Denmark coming in second, followed by Switzerland, which pushed Norway out of the top three this year.
Now, while it seems like a strange time to be evaluating happiness, the editors of the report point out that challenging times can actually increase happiness.
“The global pandemic poses great risks for some of the main supports for well-being, most especially health and income,” the editors explained.
“As revealed by earlier studies of earthquakes, floods, storms, tsunamis and even economic crises, a high trust society quite naturally looks for and finds co-operative ways to work together to repair the damage and rebuild better lives. This has sometimes led to surprising increases in happiness in the wake of what might otherwise seem to be unmitigated disasters.”
The reason why people get happier in the face of disasters?
“People are pleasantly surprised by the willingness of their neighbors and their institutions to work together and help each other,” the editors continued.
“This delivers a heightened sense of belonging and pride in what they have been able to achieve by way of mitigation. These gains are sometimes great enough to compensate for the material losses.”
With the World Happiness Report being released annually, only time will tell if this is true.
Amid mounting pressure from athletes and national governing bodies, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is now considering whether to postpone or otherwise alter the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which were scheduled to begin July 24.
In a statement released Sunday, IOC President Thomas Bach wrote that the IOC has ruled out cancelling the Games altogether, but it is preparing for various scenarios including “changes to the start date of the Games.”
“Together with all the stakeholders, we have started detailed discussions today to complete our assessment of the rapid development of the worldwide health situation and its impact on the Olympic Games, including a scenario of postponement,” Bach wrote in the letter.
“(But) a cancellation of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 would not solve any of the problems or help anybody. Therefore, cancellation is not on the agenda.”
The Olympic flame arrived in Japan on Friday. Source: Associated Press.
Bach further acknowledged in a personal letter to athletes that postponing the Olympic Games ‘is an extremely complex challenge,’ but a final decision would be ‘made within the next four weeks.’
“A number of critical venues needed for the Games could potentially not be available anymore. The situations with millions of nights already booked in hotels is extremely difficult to handle, and the international sports calendar for at least 33 Olympic sports would have to be adapted. These are just a few of many, many more challenges,” he wrote in his letter.
“Therefore… we are working very hard (to make a decision), and we are confident that we will have finalised these discussions within the next four weeks.”
This statement represents a significant shift in the IOC’s messaging on the Olympics. For months, the IOC and Bach have dismissed even the possibility of a postponement as mere speculation and declined to specify any contingency plans for the Games.
The Olympics have never been postponed or cancelled during peacetime.
The Russian military will start sending medical help to Italy from Sunday to help the country battle against the coronavirus outbreak that has killed over 5,400 people.
The Russian Defense Ministry said four military planes carrying virologists, epidemiologists, medical equipment and a supply of pharmaceuticals were expected to land at the Pratica di Mare Air Base some 30 kilometres southwest of the capital Rome.
Russian military virologists and medics have been sent to Italy to help battle coronavirus and try to bring down the death toll. Source: East2West.
“The military transport aircraft of the Russian Air Forces will deliver to the republic 8 mobile teams of Russian military specialists-virologists and doctors, automobile complexes for aerosol disinfection of transport and territory, as well as medical equipment,” the ministry said in a statement.
The decision to help comes after Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, spoke to Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, on Saturday to offer his support and condolences.
“Giuseppe Conte expressed his sincere gratitude for the steps Russia is taking to support Italy at such a tough time for it,” the statement read.
The death toll from coronavirus in Italy has reached over 5470, making it the country with the highest number of fatalities from the contagion, surpassing China.
