COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by a new virus, and about one hundred sixty million of people are infected by it as of May 15, 2021. With the spread of COVID-19 around the world, a lot of changes happened especially in the fields of sports.

▲ The match held without spectators in KBO league.

The biggest effect is that the matches and competitions are held without spectators or are delayed. For example, one of the biggest sports competitions, the Olympics in Tokyo, is delayed. It was supposed to be held in the summer of 2020; however, it was delayed to 2021 because of the pandemic situation. Also, lots of sports matches are held without spectators or with a few spectators because of the quarantine rules for the prevention of the spread of COVID-19.

Next, the spring training of the sports teams was progressed in South Korea. Actually, they went to other warm countries like the southern United States or Hawaii. However, the pandemic situation made players cannot train in other countries. So, all the players playing in South Korean leagues trained in the southern areas of South Korea. It is warmer there than in the northern areas of South Korea, however, it is cold in winter. So, many players did indoor training, and this caused the lack of training. Finally, the lack of training caused the failure of athletic performance in the season.

▲ FC Barcelona cut the salary of the players because of financial difficulties.

The last important change is the industrial impact on sports. All of the sports teams are earning less money than before COVID-19 because of the decrease in spectators. this gave financial difficulties to some sports teams. For instance, some European soccer clubs are in the threat of bankruptcy. According to the person in authority of Korean sports policy, he told that pandemic situation led to the 7.4 percent of closure rate in sports facilities, 2.3 percent of closure rate in sports products, and 2.4 percent of closure rate in sports services.

Aside from these things, there are many other changes between the pandemic situation and the normal situation. COVID-19 is ruining our lifestyle and culture especially in the field of sports. So, we hope that COVID-19 will come to an end as soon as possible.

2021.05.22

By Taeho Kim