MOSCOW, May 12. /TASS/. The world’s governing body of football, FIFA, has moved the date of its annual Congress to September 18 and it will be organized as an online event due to the ongoing global spread of the novel coronavirus, the organization’s press office announced in a statement on Tuesday.
The 70th FIFA Congress was initially scheduled to be held in the capital and largest city of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, on June 5, but FIFA announced later a decision to reschedule the event for September over the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Following a thorough assessment of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent recommendations made by the FIFA-Confederations COVID-19 Working Group, the Bureau of the FIFA Council has taken the following decisions in relation to FIFA events… to hold the 70th FIFA Congress, which was originally due to take place in Addis Ababa, as an online event on 18 September 2020," the statement reads.
"Further details on FIFA’s events in 2020 will be communicated in due course," the statement added.
COVID-19
In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus — named COVID-19 by the WHO — have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 4,280,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 288,100 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 1,543,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.
To date, a total of 232,243 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 43,512 patients having recovered from the virus. Russia’s latest data indicates 2,116 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.