Coronavirus has been the primary topic in the media these days. To prevent the virus from spreading, all social gatherings scheduled for the ongoing and next month have been cancelled or postponed.
However, no one is yet sure how much time will be needed to get the issue under control. For this reason, some competitions that are supposed to take place in a few months haven’t changed their schedules yet. The CONIFA 2020 World Cup is one such competition, scheduled to start on May 30.
Since the CONIFA still hasn’t published the official statement with more details, the teams selected to participate in this competition are uncertain about their further actions.
Parishes of Jersey FC Thinks Positive
One of the participants is Parishes of Jersey, led by coach James Scott. The officials of the team, together with the coach, believe that the issue with the virus will be dealt with before the competition starts.
Since he firmly believes the competition will be held as planned, Scott hand-picked the players who should represent Parishes of Jersey at the 2020 CONIFA World Cup. Eleven of them belonged to the 2019 Muratti-winning squad, while the remaining eight got ready by playing the Inter-League Cup recently.
The names on the list are Euan Van Der Vliet, Dan Birrell, Luke Campbell, James Quérée, Jay Giles, Harry Curtis, Mark Logue, Stuart André, Jack Cannon, Jack Boyle, Luke Watson, Calvin Weir, Zeljko Martinovic, Marco Zocchi, Sol Solomon, Jake Prince, Fraser Barlow, Karl Hinds, and Lorne Bickley.
Scott is confident that his team is ready to face any opponent at the 2020 CONIFA World Cup. He believes his team is strong and experienced enough to leave a mark this year. The CONIFA officials agree, as Parishes of Jersey quickly climbed to the top of their rankings, currently holding the number four position.
However, Scott couldn’t deny that he is slightly worried that his amazing team will miss a chance to prove themselves due to the spread of the virus.
No Final Decision Yet
Parishes of Jersey is not the only club that expressed concern about the current problem. Other teams started asking questions too, due to the non-existent information on the official CONIFA website. Therefore, CONIFA organisers decided to consult all 16 teams to discuss the situation and further actions.
As desperate times call for desperate measures, the CONIFA executive committee organised a global Skype meeting with all the qualifiers for the 2020 CONIFA World Cup. At the meeting, they discussed the importance of health and the possibility of cancelling the competition.
After some time, all the members agreed that it is too early to cancel the Cup that is still months away. To remind you, the 2020 CONIFA World Cup is planned to last from May 30 until June 7 in Skopje, North Macedonia.
In case the competition gets cancelled, many of the 16 participants will lose significant sums of money. Parishes of Jersey, in particular, already spent more than £20,000 on their debut World Cup campaign.
This amount includes the cost of travel as well, some of which they can get back in case the flights they booked get cancelled. Many other teams are in the same position as Parishes of Jersey, as they also booked their flights in advance.
Although none of the teams prefers losing money, they all agree that the first thing on their minds right now is the health and well-being of people around the world. One thing is certain — no one has even dreamed about something like coronavirus hitting us hard and turning our lives upside down.
If the virus advances in the following days, there’s no doubt that the 2020 CONIFA World Cup will join other competitions on the list of cancelled events.