Wuhan Zall, the soccer team from the epicentre of the coronavirus, are to leave their training camp in the south of Spain to return to China, with their coach saying they are more at risk in Europe than in their home city.
"The problem right now is here, in China it has been practically eradicated," Wuhan Zall coach Jose Gonzalez told Spain's Efe news agency on Thursday.
The team travelled to Cadiz in the region of Andalusia for a pre-season tour on Jan. 29 and remained there as the spread of the virus became more severe and the start of the Chinese Super League was postponed.
One of the players' relatives died from the virus, which has claimed 3,169 lives in China and over 4,600 globally.
Around two-thirds of global cases of the coronavirus have been recorded in China’s central Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, but the number of cases in China has recently declined.
Numbers of infections, meanwhile, have soared in Europe, with Spain having the second-highest tally of infected people, the death toll rising to 84 on Thursday.
(Reporting by Richard Martin, editing by Ed Osmond)
