{"id":545361,"date":"2020-03-09T10:30:55","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T14:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=545361"},"modified":"2020-03-09T10:30:55","modified_gmt":"2020-03-09T14:30:55","slug":"accrington-stanley-boss-urges-efl-postponement-amid-coronavirus-outbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/03\/09\/accrington-stanley-boss-urges-efl-postponement-amid-coronavirus-outbreak\/","title":{"rendered":"Accrington Stanley Boss Urges EFL Postponement Amid Coronavirus Outbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Accrington Stanley chief Andy Holt has called for the EFL to take urgent action due to the outbreak of Coronavirus.<\/p>\n<h2>Accrington Stanley Boss Urges EFL Postponement Amid Coronavirus Outbreak<\/h2>\n<h3>&#8216;People Are Dying&#8217;<\/h3>\n<p>The total number of cases reported in the UK rose to 319 today after the virus broke out in Wuhan, China.<\/p>\n<p>Three people have died with links to Covid-19 with well over 100,000 cases reported worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson chaired an emergency meeting today with COBRA &#8211; they discussed measures to reduce the spread of the virus.<\/p>\n<p>Methods of preventing the illness&#8217; spread include banning big events, closing schools and encouraging home working.<\/p>\n<p>But Accrington Stanley owner Andy Holt says football should be paused.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d be considering pausing the season&#8230;until we get a grip of it,\u201d said Holt on BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme (via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coventrytelegraph.net\/sport\/football\/football-news\/coventry-city-coronavirus-league-one-17889658\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Coventry Live<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d pause it and review. We should not be focused on competition now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe should be focused on not repeating the Italian errors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFolk are dying at an accelerating rate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c133 people died of #COVID2019 in Italy yesterday. A 57% increase.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is DEADLY serious. Football isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLives matter more. I\u2019d pause the season now and reconvene to review every 7 days.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Holt continued: \u201cWe had 3000 fans at our place at the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m worried inviting them all together is putting them in danger&#8230; We have a lot of elderly fans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added that he is \u201creally concerned\u201d by the financial impact on EFL clubs if deprived of crucial matchday revenue, \u201cbut not as concerned as I would be about not getting a grip on this crisis&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf I lose half of my fans to this disease I have long-term ramifications that are far more critical.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Impact on Promotion Race<\/h3>\n<p>Stanley are 17th in League One but if Holt&#8217;s wish comes true, it could damage Coventry City&#8217;s chances of promotion from the third tier.<\/p>\n<p>The Sky Blues have a lead of five points over second-placed Rotherham and are seven clear of third-placed Oxford United.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Robins&#8217; side head to the Wham Stadium at the end of March.<\/p>\n<p>Stanley also take on Portsmouth (6th), Doncaster Rovers (9th), Sunderland (5th) and Wycombe Wanderers (8th) before the season finishes.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"P_l3zzquSgd__6haTN_HRA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1184099118\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'P_l3zzquSgd__6haTN_HRA',sig:'J7ydx5poE96AwPaHWmU_QzFuIeX6hb9egSw3dD9ih7Q=',w:'594px',h:'409px',items:'1184099118',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Accrington Stanley chief Andy Holt has called for the EFL to take urgent action due to the outbreak of Coronavirus. Accrington Stanley Boss Urges EFL Postponement Amid Coronavirus Outbreak &#8216;People Are Dying&#8217; The total number of cases reported in the UK rose to 319 today after the virus broke out in Wuhan, China. Three people [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3040,"featured_media":545362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,33,34,30,3],"tags":[550,197,168,188,520],"class_list":["post-545361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-championship","category-league12","category-news","category-premier-league","tag-accrington-stanley","tag-championship","tag-efl","tag-league-one","tag-league-two"],"modified_by":"Matt Lee","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3040"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}