VIRUS OUTBREAK-SPORTS
Nationals report 1 positive test, not a player
UNDATED (AP) - Washington Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo says a non-playing team employee tested positive for the coronavirus and is “on the road to getting better.”
Rizzo says no players for the reigning World Series champions have shown any symptoms of COVID-19 at any point and so no one has been tested. He said the team’s medical staff checks in each day with every player and staff member.
Rizzo said the ailing employee was at the team’s spring training facility in West Palm Beach, Florida, and now is home after his quarantine ended. Rizzo said the employee is fever-free and symptom-free.
In other news related to the coronavirus pandemic:
- The XFL has suspended operations and laid off its employees. Employees were told of the layoffs Friday during an in-house conference call. The upstart league backed by WWE canceled the remainder of its season last month because of the coronavirus pandemic, but promised to be back in 2021. The moves have left the league’s future in doubt. The XFL has eight franchises and played five games out of a planned 10-game schedule.
- The Arizona Coyotes will furlough half of the organization’s employees with the NHL season on hold due to the coronavirus outbreak. The furloughs began Friday and will last through June 30. The Coyotes say all furloughed employees will continue to receive 100% of health benefits.
- The Orlando Magic’s home arena will become a distribution center for medical equipment and supplies as part of the ongoing response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Amway Center will be a hub for equipment and supplies that will go to 50 hospitals in Central Florida as well as facilities in seven other states.
- The American Hockey League’s Syracuse Crunch has loaned two sanitation machines to a local hospital to see if they could help clean personal protective equipment worn by hospital staff. The Crunch uses one of the machines in its locker room and the other to clean equipment but doesn’t need them right now with sports on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic. Turns out they’re a good fit at Upstate University Hospital.
FIFA INVESTIGATION-BLATTER
Swiss prosecutors intend to drop 1 FIFA case against Blatter
GENEVA (AP) - Former FIFA (FEE’-fuh) president Sepp Blatter has won a legal victory in his fight since 2015 against Swiss allegations of criminal mismanagement. Federal prosecutors in Switzerland plan to drop one of two cases open against him.
The Swiss attorney general’s office on Saturday confirmed reports they intend to close an investigation into how Blatter and soccer governing body FIFA awarded World Cup broadcast rights in the Caribbean in 2005.
The decision is the latest example in recent weeks of the Swiss FIFA cases stalling, while the separate and cooperating American investigation sparked back into life with new indictments and fresh allegations of World Cup bid bribery.
The criminal proceeding against Blatter was opened 4 ½ years ago and helped remove him from the presidential office he held for more than 17 years. He is serving a six-year FIFA ban from soccer.
The Swiss prosecution office says a second criminal proceeding against Blatter - for a $2 million payment he authorized to FIFA vice president Michel Platini in 2011 for uncontracted salary - remains open.
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