A report in today’s L’Equipe claims Olympique Lyonnais-Juventus might have played an important role in the spread of coronavirus in France.
According to a retired doctor based in Lyon, the Champions League Last-16 tie between the two teams at Groupama Stadium last month – which OL won 1-0 – ‘shouldn’t have gone ahead’.
Dubbing it ‘match-zero’, L’Equipe wrote: “The Round-of-16 first leg on February 26 and the influx of Italian supporters may have favoured the spread of COVID-19 in the Rhone.”
A report in today’s L’Equipe claims Olympique Lyonnais-Juventus might have played an important role in the spread of coronavirus in France.
According to a retired doctor based in Lyon, the Champions League Last-16 tie between the two teams at Groupama Stadium last month – which OL won 1-0 – ‘shouldn’t have gone ahead’.
Dubbing it ‘match-zero’, L’Equipe wrote: “The Round-of-16 first leg on February 26 and the influx of Italian supporters may have favoured the spread of COVID-19 in the Rhone.”
Marcel Garrigou-Grandchamp, a retired medic and now a local union chief, supported the statement, pointing out that a team like the Bianconeri would bring fans from all over Italy to their matches and ‘not only from Piedmont’.
“That game shouldn’t have gone ahead, it brought fans from all over Italy to Lyon, not only from Piedmont, which did not represent an area at risk,” Garrigou-Grandchamp told the newspaper.
L’Equipe studied the contagion charts in the region, also taking into consideration Italy’s WHO representative Walter Ricciardi’s statements, underlining how Atalanta-Valencia had played an unfortunate role in the spread of the virus in Lombardy.
Le Parisien, meanwhile, highlighted the match between Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund on March 11, when thousands of fans gathered outside Parc des Princes to support their heroes playing behind closed doors for a place in the quarter-finals.