Pep Guardiola’s mother has passed away from coronavirus, Manchester City have confirmed.
The Premier League champions confirmed the sad news on Monday that Dolors Sala Carrio had passed at the age of 82.
City paid tribute to their manager on social media, saying: “Everyone associated with the club sends their most heartfelt sympathy at this most distressing time to Pep, his family and all their friends.”
“Everyone at Spurs sends their deepest condolences. Our thoughts are with Pep and his family at this time,” Spurs tweeted.
The tragic news comes weeks after Guardiola himself made a generous donation of £920,000 (€1 million) to help fight the coronavirus in Spain.
Guardiola earmarked the money, sent to the Angel Soler Daniel Foundation, to be spent on purchasing medical equipment.
The fund is named after a doctor from Santpedor – the town Guardiola hails from – who passed away in the 1970s.
The Barcelona medical college said that equipment is in short supply across Catalonia and Guardiola’s generosity will go a long way to easing the strain on health centres. Catalonia is reported to have the most concentrated number of cases in Spain.
Guardiola is currently back at home in Barcelona following the outbreak, where he has been urging football fans to stay at home to reduce the spread of the deadly virus.
“We miss football,” he said. “We miss the life that we had a few days ago but now is the time to listen, to follow our scientists, doctors and nurses.
“You are my football family and we are going to do everything possible to make you feel better. We’ll come back from this stronger, better, kinder… and a little bit fatter. Stay inside, stay safe.”
The 2020 Olympic Games has been postponed until 2021 on March 24 – becoming one of the last major sporting events this summer to fall victim to the coronavirus.
Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe held a crucial conference call with Olympics chief Thomas Bach on Tuesday to formally decide a plan and they have chosen to postpone for 12 months.
The decision also means the Tokyo Paralympic Games will be subject to a one-year delay.
Despite the delay, the name of the delayed Games will still be Tokyo 2020, the city’s governor Yuriko Koike revealed.
A joint statement from the IOC and Tokyo 2020 organising committee read: “In the present circumstances and based on the information provided by the WHO today, the IOC President and the Prime Minister of Japan have concluded that the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo must be rescheduled to a date beyond 2020 but not later than summer 2021, to safeguard the health of the athletes, everybody involved in the Olympic Games and the international community.
“The leaders agreed that the Olympic Games in Tokyo could stand as a beacon of hope to the world during these troubled times and that the Olympic flame could become the light at the end of the tunnel in which the world finds itself at present.
“Therefore, it was agreed that the Olympic flame will stay in Japan. It was also agreed that the Games will keep the name Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020.”
There was plenty of scepticism whether the Olympics would pull through and continue as scheduled, while events linked to the games were called off.
The Olympic torch relay in Greece was cancelled on March 13 – just a day after the flame was lit in Olympia.
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