Five players in top two divisions of Spanish football test positive for COVID-19
May 10, 2020
Madrid [Spain], May 10 : Five players in the top two divisions of the Spanish football have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Spain's domestic football competition La Liga confirmed this on Sunday.
"Concretely, five positive cases have been detected among players of LaLiga Santander and LaLiga SmartBank clubs, all of which are asymptomatic and in the latter stages of the virus," the La Liga said in an official statement.
"The identity of the players is unknown to LaLiga in line with data protection legislation. The aggregate results have been sent by LaLiga to the CSD (Spanish High Sports Council) and to the Spanish Ministry of Health," it added.
As La Liga mulls a restart to its suspended season, all professional footballers in Spain are being tested for coronavirus ahead of a return to training.
However, Dr Rafael Ramos, the president of the Spanish Association of Football Doctors, has confirmed that entire La Liga sides will not be required to quarantine themselves if one or more players fall ill.
"In La Liga, if there are positive tests during training, the whole squad will not be quarantined," Goal.com quoted Ramos as saying.
Currently, all sporting action across the world has come to a halt due to the coronavirus pandemic.
German football competition, Bundesliga, however, will be restarting its season from May 16.
More than 4 million cases of coronavirus have been recorded worldwide, including at least 279,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The World Health Organisation had termed COVID-19 as a pandemic on March 11.
