The coronavirus crisis has swept the globe and nothing has been left untouched. That applies too to sport, which has been fairly absent across the world over the last week.
That does not mean we have not learned a lot about teams, governing bodies and the stars that play our most popular sports. In the vacuum, heroes and villains have come to the fore.
Sportsmail has now taken a look at the lessons we have learned over the last week from across the sporting world…
The decision to go ahead with Cheltenham now looks as ridiculous as the stupidly-late suspension of the Premier League
In Spain, there are concerns that ground zero for a lot of the cases of coronavirus in both that country and Italy was the game between Atalanta and Valencia in the Champions League.
It was held in the San Siro, while Atalanta are based in Bergamo, one of the hardest hit regions. Valencia had 35 per cent of their playing staff test positive for the virus last week too.
In the United Kingdom, we have our own folly. It took ages for the Premier League to be suspended and it seemed as though it would be going ahead just over a week ago.
The decision to hold the Cheltenham festival seems more ridiculous with every passing day
That turned out not to be true, as Mikel Arteta’s positive test followed shortly by Callum Hudson-Odoi’s proved too much. Prior to that, Manchester City’s clash with Arsenal had been postponed.
Yet even while Premier League fixtures were falling by the wayside, Cheltenham went ahead in front of huge crowds. At that stage, most sports events were going behind closed doors across Europe or getting called off entirely.
That was not the case for the racing. A crowd of 60,664 attended the first day, with aggregate attendances of around 250,000 over the week.
It is troubling to imagine how many cases of coronavirus have stemmed from the Festival
While Charlie Austin has not had a positive test for coronavirus, he has been suffering from the symptoms – which he described as ‘serious’.
An enlightening interview last week revealed he thought he had picked it up after attending Cheltenham.
Given the exponential growth rate of coronavirus cases, how many will stem from the crowds at the festival? How ridiculous will the decision not to hold it behind closed doors seem in a few weeks, a month or even a year?
Charlie Austin admitted he was concerned he had picked up an illness from Cheltenham
The gold medal for running a shambolic Olympics goes to… the IOC
U.S. Track and Field and UK Athletics have called for a delay. Canada have said they will not be sending their athletes.
Meanwhile, athletes across the globe are still having to train for an event that does not look likely to happen. It is the IOC’s inability to admit defeat on holding the Olympics this summer that is causing this shambles.
Even Shinzo Abe, who is reliant on the Games taking place in Tokyo for the political value it has, admitted on Monday that the situation might change. He told parliament: ‘In light of considering athletes first, it may become inevitable that we make a decision to postpone.’
The IOC have only now started putting plans in place to deal with the coronavirus crisis
The IOC are only now making plans to delay the Games a year, push them back to 2021 or run a scaled-down version this summer.
What is it about a near-global lockdown that suggested it was possible until the start of this week? What about the global pandemic – did that not make them reconsider their current plans?
When it comes to governing bodies, the IOC have really not covered themselves in glory around their handling of coronavirus.
Even Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has admitted the games might have to be postponed
Some sports stars have shown remarkable generosity…
Outside of Manchester United fans, not many supporters had fond memories of Gary Neville the player. Wilfried Zaha spends his weeks getting kicked up and down the country and booed by opposition fans. Andy Carroll has a slightly brutalist approach to the game sometimes that doesn’t win him many plaudits.
Yet all three have worked wonders in the last week, using their privileged position to help society in an incredibly trying time.
Neville – and Ryan Giggs, his co-owner in his hotel ventures – has opened the doors of two Manchester hotels to NHS workers at a trying time for them.
Wilfried Zaha has done the same for 50 properties he owns, some of them in London. The value of that on the open market must be incredible.
Gary Neville has opened the doors to his hotels in Manchester to NHS workers
Andy Carroll has gone and collected thousands of pounds from his team-mates to pay for their kitman’s hip operation.
At the same time, Chelsea, spurred by Roman Abramovich, have opened the doors to the hotel at Stamford Bridge to NHS workers.
The disconnect between the modern footballer and the average man on the street has seemingly grown for years and years. Most assume they don’t care.
That is not the truth. They do care for their place in society and know that more than most, they can help.
Wilfried Zaha has done the same with properties that he owns, opening them to NHS workers
Yet the likes of Luka Jovic think the rules don’t apply to them
What would you do if you found out someone you may have come into contact with had tested positive for coronavirus?
You’d probably stay indoors, right? Isolate from those you care for? Give yourself a week to display any symptoms and then maybe get on with your life?
Not Luka Jovic. After a Real Madrid basketball player tested positive for the virus, they shut down all of their training. The players were sent home and told to quarantine.
Luka Jovic decided to go back to Serbia during his club-enforced quarantine, flying there
Jovic took that as an opportunity to return to Serbia. That’s a journey with a serious risk of coming into contact with others. Even worse, Madrid is a virus hotspot and Serbia had told people not to return.
It is serious enough that the Serbian prime minister hammered him for his decision. Ana Brnabic said: ‘We have the negative example of our football stars who earn millions and have ignored the obligation to self-isolate so they can return home.’
Even his dad admitted he had made a mistake, admitting: ‘Now it seems like he’s a major criminal. If he has to go to jail, then he goes.’
Just because Jovic can hop on a plane at any time, it does not mean he should. He needs to have more social responsibility than that.
In times of genuine crisis, football rivalries mean nothing…
There was a serious, justified, concern when Karren Brady broke rank and called for the season to be declared null and void. Liverpool, Leeds and West Brom fans feared the worst.
If there were going to be this many vested interests making the decision over the rest of the 2019-20 season, how could they possibly come to a solution that did not involve cancellation?
Well, it turns out Brady was an outlier. At every step of this process, teams have shown a remarkable willingness to work together.
Take UEFA, for example. It took just one day for them to decide to postpone Euro 2020, which is incredible given how slowly those men in blazers sometimes move.
Liverpool do not seem likely to have their charge to the Premier League title halted by the virus
The EFL meanwhile, all immediately committed to finishing the campaign. Given the rivalries at play in that league, it is a brilliant step for them to make that decision.
And the Premier League, where money is king, took the sensible step of deciding the same. Sure, those of a Manchester United persuasion do not want Liverpool to lift the title but even they recognise they have been remarkable this season and deserve to at the end of it.
Even the FA has broken with years and years of tradition and insisted the season must end, even if it takes far longer than the end date of June 1 written into their rulebook.
This level of agreement is unprecedented in football history. Everyone has put their own interests aside in favour of supporting the game itself.
The Premier League and other governing bodies have worked together to a remarkable degree
… but ALL clubs want to be on top when this is all over
Liverpool have been comfortably the best side in the country this season but even they recognise the toll this pause could take on their players and, by extension, their title challenge.
So the club’s sports psychologist Lee Richardson has been offering mental health tips to ensure the title is not at the forefront of their minds. They have also been given breathing techniques.
Leeds are top of the Championship and were on a five game winning streak before the pause. They have given all of their players bikes and weights and tailored programmes to ensure they hit the ground running.
Clubs are starting to pull together transfer plans for the summer. Life, as much as it can in a world without games or training, is going on.
Do not mistake the collaborative efforts as a dimming of the competitive spirit. When football comes back, every team wants to be at their absolute best and be in a position to win again.
Every team is making sure they stay on top – like Leeds in the second tier – when this is all over
Let’s be honest, eSports are still no replacement for REAL sport
On Sunday night, in lieu of a real Grand Prix, Formula One held an eSports edition. Leyton Orient’s much-vaunted Ultimate Quaran-team started off.
How many actually tuned in? And what percentage of those who would have sat down to watch the Australian Grand Prix last weekend were in the audience for the eSports edition?
Ditto Orient’s commendable attempt to fill the gaps of the football calendar.
There’s an audience for eSports, sure. YouTube stars are made on the back of people’s love of Fortnite, League of Legends or Overwatch. That is more of a generational thing, though.
This last week has taught us that they are not an immediate replacement for a pie, pint and programme.
We have long been told that eSports are the future. They might still be. More importantly, they are not the present we hoped for.
While Formula One had an eSports Grand Prix on Sunday night, it is not a proper replacement
Enough with the toilet roll challenges…
There has been loads of good content from footballers. Q&As have taken place, Match of the Day at the weekend was an excellent insight while the additional space for interviews on a day to day basis has given us more of an understanding of how these people tick.
At this stage though, it might be worth moving on from the toilet roll kick-ups.
The message – stay at home, if you can – is important. Players must keep getting that across, given their social media presence.
It might be time to find another way to do it, though. Given the reaction when celebrities did it, though, it’s worth ruling out a singalong.
Television money is STILL king… even in a crisis
The Olympics’ biggest broadcast partner, NBC, has sold $1billion in advertising for the 2020 games. That after they paid $7.5bn for the rights to the games until 2032 back in 2014.
The Premier League’s TV deals across the globe are worth £9.2bn over the three-year period between 2019 and 2022. Sportsmail reported last weekend they would be at risk of breaching that if the season is not done by the end of July.
Contracts are complicated, but even so, it has to be assumed no one put a coronavirus clause into any of these deals.
The need to fulfil television deals is still playing a big part for all of the sporting bodies dealing with this crisis.
Sky Sports are one of the Premier League’s most important television broadcast partners
Wembley will NOT be used to cook a giant lasagne
As awful as the situation around the world is, at least there have been moments of humour.
A voice note doing the rounds on WhatsApp over the last week suggested that the government is planning to cook a giant lasagne at Wembley Stadium, using the roof and the undersoil heating to create an oven.
The lasagne will then be delivered door to door. It is both a message about how quickly fake news can spread and – more importantly – hilarious.
Just to prove the point, Sportsmail has checked and it turns out the FA are not planning to use the national stadium to feed the nation.
Next up – finding out whether this scuppers France’s plan to use the Channel Tunnel to cook a giant garlic bread.
Despite a viral WhatsApp voice note, Wembley will not be used to cook a giant lasagne