Coronavirus has disrupted sports around the world – this is how journalists are responding to the crisis

The pages at the back of newspapers still must be filled, websites still must run... the show must go on even if there’s no show to speak of, writes Ben Burrows

The Premier League has postponed all fixtures until April (Reuters)

Every sports editor across the industry is wrestling with one single question: how do you cover sport when there is no sport?

The global coronavirus outbreak has wiped out sporting schedules across the world to a degree not seen in a lifetime. You have to go back as far as the Second World War for this level of disruption.

Friday was the day of reckoning. First, the Champions League and Europa League knockout fixtures for this week fell. Then every English Football League game followed. Then the Premier League did what in truth they should have done long before Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta tested positive and postponed all matches until April at the earliest.

Football was not alone of course. The final Six Nations fixture still on, Wales vs Scotland, was soon off. The Bahrain and Vietnam Grands Prix were postponed with immediate effect. Marathons in Boston, London and Manchester were cancelled or moved. Golf’s Masters, one of the great sporting events of the calendar, gone.

It should be made explicitly clear at this point that these decisions had to be made. Despite Bill Shankly’s infamous proclamation, football isn’t far more important than life or death. It’s the exact opposite. That sporting governing bodies moved to shutter their doors before the government sparked a far wider argument over leadership in these unprecedented times, but regardless of how they came to these conclusions or how quickly they did, it was the right thing to do.

This situation leaves the sporting media in a difficult situation. The pages at the back of newspapers still must be filled, websites still must run. Twitter and Facebook and Instagram must still be populated. The show must go on even if there’s no show to do match reports and player ratings on.

In many ways, a life without sport is precisely when you need it most. Sport has always been the most important of the least important things and never more so than in a time of crisis. Sport is the escape from the every day, the respite from the routine. It’s those two precious hours a week where you can forget everything and focus your energy and emotions on something else.

When the intensity of a problem increases, so too does the clamour for it to cease. We’ve never needed sport more and that’s why we won’t stop reporting on it.

How do you cover sport when there is no sport? There is no perfect answer, just that we have to.

Yours,

Ben Burrows

Sports editor