CardiffCity

Cardiff may be forced to scrap pre-season Portugal trip due to coronavirus

05-Mar-2020 15:59:58 | Four-Four-Two

Cardiff could abandon a planned pre-season trip to Portugal this summer because of the coronavirus outbreak.Bluebirds boss Neil Harris wants to take his players away before the start of next season, but those plans have been put on hold due to the spread of the virus.Weve identified going to Portugal to a resort I know well, Harris said.It has a training complex and hospitality-wise its also good for fans to travel to.I like to involve fans in pre-season and get everyone together, but weve had to put it onto the backburner as weve got to think of health and safety.Sky Bet Championship side Cardiff went to North America for part of their pre-season last summer.But Harris admits that the spread of the virus could force them to stay within the confines of Great Britain and Ireland this time.Were drawing up a few different plans, involving possibly Scotland and Ireland, but we will be governed by what happens in the coming weeks, he said.Its a hot topic for us on the training ground because, logistically, its not easy for us at Cardiff and being abroad can help us to play games.You can leave it as late as you want. But if you want good opposition, involve the fan base and have a clear structure then you want to do it as soon as possible.Ideally for me it would have been organised last week.Pre-season is monotonous for players as theyre here early in the morning and sometimes it involves three or four sessions a day.If you do that day after day for three weeks, then players and staff can become bored with each other.You need to do something different and I want to go overseas, but we have to be prepared that there is a dangerous virus out there this year.(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-72310761-1', 'auto', {'name': 'pacontentapi'}); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'referrer', location.origin); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension1', 'By Phil Blanche, PA'); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension2', '4334d43c-afcf-4f5e-9194-c618815fc322'); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension3', 'paservice:sport,paservice:sport:club-news,paservice:sport:football'); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension6', 'story'); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension7', 'composite'); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension8', null); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension9', 'sport:football'); ga('pacontentapi.send', 'pageview', { 'location': location.href, 'page': (location.pathname + location.search + location.hash), 'title': 'Cardiff may be forced to scrap pre-season Portugal trip due to coronavirus'});