Tokyo: The Japanese Football Association announced on Thursday that the country would not host the FIFA Club World Cup 2021 because of coronavirus restrictions.
In December, the annual football competition, which pits the champions of the six global confederations against the host nation’s best squad, was scheduled to take place in Japan.
‘We had to make a decision at this time,’ JFA Secretary-General and CEO Kiyotaka Suhara said in a press conference.
The Club World Cup was last hosted in Japan in 2016, and the JFA had planned to host it again in 2021 as part of their centennial celebrations.
The tournament is usually held in December, but because of the Covid-19 outbreak, the 2020 edition in Qatar was postponed to February 2021, with Bayern Munich emerging victorious.
At the time of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics earlier this summer, Japan experienced a record fifth wave of virus outbreaks caused by the extremely contagious Delta strain.
Anti-infection precautions are currently in place across much of the country, limiting the number of spectators at sporting events. The Japanese government announced on Thursday that the COVID-19 state of emergency would be extended in several parts of the country in order to combat a new wave of diseases.
