ROME:  Monday’s Serie A match between Sampdoria and Verona in Genoa is to become the weekend matchday’s sixth match affected by the coronavirus outbreak.

Five weekend gamees were postponed and the Genoa match was one of five cleared to go ahead with spectators by the Italian government. However the president of the Liguria region, Giovanni Toti, said that he did not want to take any unnecessary risks hence a closed-doors order.

The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy has risen to 34, five more than a day earlier, while the number of confirmed cases was 1,694.

Toti said: “Playing Samp-Verona with open doors would be a serious risk, because Genoa has not had any contagion so far, so it would have seemed inappropriate and imprudent to give access to the public.”

Verona are from one of the six regions in Italy where sports events have been banned by the government.

The five matches postponed included the Derby d'Italia between champions Juventus and Internazionale.
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