The Latest: Club rugby to resume in Europe on Aug. 22

By The Associated Press 19 June 2020, 12:00AM

The Latest on the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on sports around the world:

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Club rugby in Europe is set to resume on Aug. 22 after a five-month suspension because of the coronavirus outbreak with matches in the PRO14 league that contains teams Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Italy and South Africa.

A truncated regular season will be concluded by two rounds of matches where teams from the same nation play each other home and away to avoid cross-border travel.

Semifinal matches will take place on Sept. 5 and the final on Sept. 12.

PRO14 tournament director David Jordan says “we are very fortunate to be in a position where everyone involved is confident that we can conclude the season on the field of play.”

The league has two conferences. Leinster and Ulster are the current top two in Conference A while Edinburgh and Munster are the top two in Conference B.

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The Atlantic Coast Conference is moving its football media days online because of concerns about COVID-19.

The ACC Football Kickoff was originally scheduled to be held at The Westin in Charlotte, North Carolina. It has been rescheduled for July 21-23 with coverage on the ACC Network. Commissioner John Swofford, each of the conference’s 14 head coaches and selected players will be featured.

All 10 FBS conferences have now announced that their media days will be altered because of the pandemic, with most going virtual. The Big Ten has not made a final decision on its media days.

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Norwich midfielder Marco Stiepermann has returned to training after self-isolating at home following a positive test for COVID-19.

The English club was informed of the positive test on Friday. That was the same day Norwich played Tottenham in a friendly ahead of the resumption of the Premier League.

Norwich says Stiepermann has remained asymptomatic and has since taken two further tests that returned negative results.

Norwich is in last place in the league and hosts Southampton on Friday in their first Premier League game back after the three-month suspension.

One person has tested positive for the coronavirus in the latest round of checks. The Premier League announced that 1,541 tests had been conducted on players and club staff on June 15 and 16.

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The Swiss Indoors tennis tournament in Basel wants to cancel its 50th anniversary edition in October because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Organizers say they told tour officials they would “prefer to cancel this year’s edition of the tournament in light of the current situation.”

Tournament head Roger Brennwald says playing the event with no fans or with social distancing “have to be ruled out for us in Basel on economic grounds.”

The ATP is expected to decide on its end-of-season indoor schedule in mid-July.

Brennwald says “it looks like coronavirus is on match point and is set for victory.”

Hometown great Roger Federer was already set to miss the tournament where he worked as a ballboy and is the record 10-time champion. He ended his season this month to recover from knee surgery.

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More AP sports: https://apnews.com/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

By The Associated Press 19 June 2020, 12:00AM

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