Chinese football club Wuhan Zall are set to return to China from their training camp in Spain after their coach claimed that coronavirus is a bigger problem in Europe "right now".
The Chinese Super League side, based in Wuhan - the epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic - travelled to Cadiz, Spain for pre-season training at the end of January, but were unable to return home as the virus gripped China.
The Chinese football season was postponed in response to the outbreak, and Wuhan Zall have been in Spain ever since.
But following the spread of the virus across the globe - with Italy among the European countries hardest hit - the club have decided to return to their homeland.
"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.
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.
Spain's LaLiga season has been suspended for two weeks, while Read Madrid are self-isolating after a member of the club's basketball team tested positive for Covid-19.
Real's Champions League tie against Manchester City next week has also been postponed.
Additional reporting by Reuters.
