Tajikistan’s football season starts despite coronavirus fears

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan: Tajikistan’s domestic football season kicked off Saturday, as leagues around the world remained suspended to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The Super Cup game heralding the beginning of the football season took place behind closed doors, and saw perennial domestic champions FC Istiklol come from behind to beat FC Khujand 2-1 in the capital Dushanbe.

Tajikistan, a poor Central Asian state of 9 million people, has yet to declare a single infection from COVID-19, which has reached over a million cases worldwide and caused more than 60,000 deaths.

In the pandemic’s shadow, the vast majority of football leagues around the world have been stopped over fears for players as well as spectators.

In most cases, there are no clear plans for restarts.

Belarus league has attracted unprecedented international attention since it began with fans attending games last month.

The Tajik Super Cup tie failed to generate the same levels of social media excitement as the Belarusian league fixtures but still prompted tweets from action-starved football fans in German, English and Spanish, among other languages.

The game itself threatened to return an upset before Istiklol converted their dominance into goals and overturned an early Khujand lead.