CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
 1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
As at December 2019 Wuhan in China reported an outbreak of a SARS-CoV-2 infection disease, identified as an atypical pneumonia (Timpka, 2020). By March 2020 The World Health Organisation (WHO) classified it as a pandemic referred to as Covid-19.
COVID-19 is a droplet-transmitted potentially fatal corona virus pandemic affecting the world in 2020. It is a family of viruses that can cause respiratory illness in humans. The name, “corona,” was derived from the many crown-like spikes on the surface of the virus. Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and the common cold are examples of corona viruses that cause illness in humans.
The WHO recommended social distancing and human-to-human contact was discouraged to control the transmission. This situation necessitated lock down in many countries and sporting events were also been affected.
Sports events as those that are characterized by a creative and complex content of sports-like, recreational activities, of entertaining character, performed in accordance with a particular predetermined programme, and that achieve touristic effects and have a serious social and economic importance for the place or region in which they are held (Dianny 2004).
The sports sector, despite being an important sector at economic, sporting, and social levels, has not been exempt from these restrictions. According to Ratten (2020), “the sport sector has been especially influenced by the COVID-19 crisis in a way that has never been seen before”. All physical activity, face-to-face, and group sports were suddenly and indefinitely restricted in many countries, often being relegated to home-based physical training.
Participation in sports and exercise, typically regarded as socioeconomic events and healthy activities were restricted by nations to curtail the spread of this dreadful virus. The professional international and local football leagues (with other sport events inclusive) were ultimately shutdown after much deliberation on the transmission risk for the spectators and on-field players (Kenneth 2020). Large spectating crowds are well-known to be infectious hazards, but the infection risk for on-field players is less recognized (Mcowen 2020).
To date, the impact of Covid-19 still lingers as many sporting events only holds under certain policies like in the world of football where only on-field players, team managers and other regulative individuals are seen in the stadiums during competitions while spectators are not allowed into the stadiums. Hence upon this ground that study tends to investigate the effect of covid-19 pandemic on sporting activities.