The Latest: Baseball in Japan could start in June
The Latest on the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on sports around the world:
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The head of Japanese baseball says the 12-team league is hoping to start play next month but no specific date has been set.
Japan is living under a state of emergency that is in effect until May 31.
Commissioner Atsushi Saito says “I don’t think anyone can make preparations by setting a specific opening day.”
Saito says the All-Star game in July has been canceled for the first time since it was initially held almost 70 years ago. The Japanese season was originally scheduled to open on March 20.
Tohoku Medical and Pharmaceutical University professor Mitsuo Kaku says it would be difficult to set a date for the season to start with the state of emergency still in effect.
Baseball has begun in Taiwan and South Korea in empty stadiums.
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The Portuguese soccer federation says the league, clubs and players must take responsibility for the consequences of the return to soccer in the country amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The federation says that is the first condition stipulated by government authorities to allow the Portuguese league and the Portuguese Cup to resume as planned by the end of the month.
The federation says the league, clubs and players at all times “assume the risk of infection” and “bear the responsibility” of all possible consequences related to the disease and to “the risk for public health.”
The federation says it received a set of conditions from the government on Sunday.
The government recently said it would allow the league and the cup to resume on May 30. The second division was canceled.
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Zlatan Ibrahimovic is expected to return to Italy to spend two weeks in quarantine ahead of the potential return of the Serie A season with AC Milan.
He leaves behind plenty of questions in his native Sweden.
Ibrahimovic has been keeping up his fitness by training with Hammarby. He bought a nearly 25% stake in the Stockholm-based club last year in his first move into soccer ownership. The striker practiced with the men’s and women’s teams and played in a training match because Sweden is not under strict lockdown measures during the coronavirus pandemic.
The 38-year-old Ibrahimovic could return to the club as a player in the final years of his career.
Milan and most of the other Italian league clubs resumed training on an individual basis last week before full team training restarts next Monday.
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