Off the Pitch

Two Atlanta United players and one player on expansion club Inter Miami CF have tested positive for the coronavirus.

Per the Atlanta United, their two unidentified players are asymptomatic and are in isolation.

In a statement Saturday, Atlanta United said the club will continue non-contact training on Monday. If negative test results for all players and staff are received on that day, the club will resume full team training on Tuesday.

On Friday, exactly 155 years after Union troops marched into Galveston, Texas, to announce to all enslaved people in Texas they were free, more than 70 black players in MLS joined together to announce the creation the Black Players Coalition to fight the racial inequalities in that still exist in the league and the country. 

An outbreak of the coronavirus in Beijing has further "complicated" plans to start the postponed Chinese Super League (CSL), a medical expert advising the country's soccer association said.

The CSL was scheduled to start in February but has been postponed indefinitely due to COVID-19.

The outbreak in Beijing, where there have been more than 180 infections recorded in just over a week, could cause further delays, Zhang Wenhong, an infectious disease specialist, told state television.

In October 2019, Bulgaria national team manager Krasimir Balakov stated that he believed England had a bigger racism problem in soccer than Bulgaria did.

"In the Bulgarian championship, we have a lot of players of different ethnicities and skin color," Balakov said, "I don't think that we have this big problem like, for example, England do."

The suspension of soccer leagues across Europe due to the COVID-19 pandemic will see overall player value drop by 6.6 billion euros ($7.5 billion), or about 18 percent, in the transfer market, KPMG's global head of sports Andrea Sartori said.

The majority of leagues have resumed or are in the process of restarting their seasons behind closed doors before the transfer window reopens, with clubs still reeling from the financial impact of the months-long shutdown.

Two of Brazil's top soccer clubs, Botafogo and Fluminense, said on Tuesday they would defy an order from their federation to resume playing competitively this week, as the country's daily coronavirus death toll hovers around 1,000.

The Rio de Janeiro state football federation proposed that the state championship, one of several state-wide tournaments that take place in Brazil before the national leagues begin in the second half of the year, restart on June 18, pending state government approval.

Bill Hamid, one of the best goalkeepers in MLS, took to social media to trash restrictive social distancing rules surrounding the upcoming MLS Is Back Tournament. This being social media in 2020, it took no time at all for someone to point out how Hamid has failed to properly social distance himself lately.