Belarus, the only European nation that continues playing football amid COVID-19 crisis

It seems like football has become more important than human lives for some in Belarus. The country has been accused of not understanding the importance of quarantine phase and are doing everything that they are not supposed to do in the current pandemic situation. The Belarusian Football Federation continues with football matches amid the COVID -19 pandemic crisis and has already sold TV rights for the games to more than 11 countries. 

While the whole of Europe remains closed, Belarus is the only country that is open for business and is carrying out football and hockey games. Belrus President Alexander Lukashenko says that he considers measures like this (quarantine) absolutely unnecessary and called the pandemic a “psychosis”. The Belarusian government believes that their country is immune to the pandemic and the number of cases so far is only 860 in a country with a population of nearly nine and a half million. 

As the world struggles against COVID-19, March 28 saw the President filling a hockey stadium with people as he played hockey. He was also quoted saying by the local media that “there are no viruses here”. He also added that hockey is the best antivirus medicine. 

The Belarusian Premier League started drawing attention for all the wrong reasons from Tuesday. In Belarus, there are no restrictions on matches and fans in grave numbers continue to turn up to watch the games. Apparently, the Belarusian Premier League is the only football association in Europe that is playing matches. 

The league has asked its footballers to play amid the pandemic situation. On the other hand, all major sports events across the globe have been either cancelled or postponed because of the COVID-19 outbreak. 

As per current data, Belarus has 1066 confirmed cases and no deaths yet. 

source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com