Veteran coach Rafael Benitez and former FC Barcelona midfielder Paulinho have arrived in China after being locked out by coronavirus. The pair will now face 14 days’ quarantine. The season is also yet to start.

Dalian Professional Football Club coach Benitez, 60, wrote on the Twitter-like microblogging website Weibo on Monday that he was “back in China” via Stockholm. He has previously coached sides like Real Madrid and Liverpool.

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Guangzhou Evergrande player Paulinho was pictured landing in China early on Tuesday, as per local media reports.

A long list of foreign footballers had been locked out of China as the country fought to stop coronavirus cases.

The likes of former West Ham United striker Marko Arnautovic — now with Shanghai SIPG — are yet to return.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) recently announced that they have hired three leading medical experts to provide advice on starting the new season, which was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In order to start the 2020 season of the Chinese Super League (CSL), the CFA invited renowned epidemiologist Zhang Wenhong, who is the head of Shanghai’s COVID-19 clinical experts team, and two other doctors as the association’s anti-epidemic experts.

The coronavirus pandemic has brought the entire world to a standstill and the sporting arena is no exception. Most of the high profile tournaments including the Olympics stand postponed.

Even the biggest cricketing spectacle on the planet, the Indian Premier League (IPL), stands suspended indefinitely owing to the coronavirus pandemic. After Bundesliga, La Liga and Serie A have recently become the other high-profile sporting events to resume after almost a three month period with almost no sporting activity. Premier League is also expected to resume later this month.

A few cricketing boards around the world have only recently granted permission to their players to resume training.

The move to restart sporting leagues and tournaments comes after governments are beginning to realise that the coronavirus is here to stay for quite some time and sports among other businesses will need to find a way to co-exist with it.

The virus has already infected more than 8 million people around the world while claiming over 430 thousand lives. There is still no sure shot treatment of the disease and social-distancing, self-isolation and maintenance of basic hand hygiene remain the only potent weapons of protecting oneself from contracting the infection.

(With inputs from IANS)