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Coronavirus continues to wreak havoc around the world. Around the globe, the Omicron variant has triggered yet another wave of the pandemic and like it how started when the virus first emerged, sports tournaments, teams, competitions and players have started getting infected.
The latest victim of the dreaded infection has been the Premier League club Manchester City which has reported not one or two but a stunning 21 cases of COVID-19 infection, in a major outbreak.
The same was confirmed by the club in their official statement.
"Pep Guardiola will miss tomorrow evening's FA Cup trip to Swindon Town after testing positive for Covid-19. The City manager recorded a positive test on Tuesday along with assistant Juanma Lillo. Both are now isolating, along with a number of other positive cases within the City first-team bubble," a part of their statement read.
Pep Guardiola will miss tomorrow evening’s FA Cup trip to Swindon Town after testing positive for Covid-19.
⬇️ DETAILS ⬇️
— Manchester City (@ManCity) January 6, 2022
"This brings the number of those isolating for Covid-related reasons amongst the group to 21. Of that number, 14 are backroom staff and seven are first-team players," the statement added.
From UK to India, COVID giving tournament organisers a headache
Despite the COVID infections, it is being reported that the third-round FA Cup tie is slated to go ahead with yet another one of Guardiola's assistants, Rodolfo Borrell, standing in for the Spaniard in this fixture.
Many Premier League matches have already been called off although City have somehow managed to play all their domestic league matches. They are enjoying a 10-point lead at the top of the table and are favourties to clinch yet another League trophy.
Even over 7000 kilometers away in India, the Board of Control for Cricket in India is having a hard time trying to plan how to organise an Indian Premier League this season. While the latter half of the 2021 season and the entire 2020 season happened in the UAE due to the Coronavirus situation in India, the Indian Cricket Board is not keen on visiting that option for now as they want the tournament back in Indian territory.
The organisers are looking at the possibility of hosting the entire match in Mumbai which has multiple stadium options and could conduct the tournament without too much of a load on pitches.