Update from Gothia Cup about the current situation because of the coronavirus

Gothia Cup wants to make an update about the current situation, because of the outbreak of the new coronavirus. This message has today been sent to all our participant teams:

Gothia Cup has a deep understanding of how all of you are affected by the outbreak of the new coronavirus and that it awakes a lot of questions regarding the tournament.

As always, Gothia Cup puts people’s health at firsthand. We follow the development carefully, and are in direct contact with the authorities, to make sure that we take the right decisions in this extraordinary situation.

In the light of the IOC’s decision to postpone the Tokyo Olympic Games, Gothia Cup would like to make it clear that our organisation, as a yearly event, has different lead times than the IOC. Hence, there is no need for radical decisions nor any speculation at this stage. Gothia Cup can wait with the final decision for two more months, until the beginning of June.

Nevertheless, we have a deep respect for the fact that some of our foreign teams don’t have the possibility to wait until then, before making their decision. None of us is left unaffected of this pandemic but the situation varies in different parts of the world, both when it comes to the spread of the disease, covid-19, and the national authorities’ restrictions. Also, the preparations for our teams differ when it comes to travel reservations and different deadlines.

Gothia Cup’s terms of cancellation are still applied as normal, meaning that you don’t need to pay your participation fee until May 10th and that you can cancel your registration with full refund of your participation fee until June 10th.

As of today, with almost four months left until Gothia Cup, there are no directions from the authorities – neither the WHO, ECDC nor the Swedish Public Health Agency – that Gothia Cup needs to cancel the tournament because of the outbreak of the coronavirus. The preparations of Gothia Cup 2020 continue but we follow the development on a daily basis and we are planning for different scenarios for this year’s tournament.

We apologise for not being able to give more exact information at this stage and we promise to manage the trust you have shown us in this extraordinary situation. We can assure you that Gothia Cup will never risk people’s health when making our decisions.

Finally, in these difficult times, Gothia Cup wants to reach out to all our Gothia family members all over the world, with the most important message at this moment: Take care of each other. Stay safe.

Whatever happens in the coming months – when this is all over, we’ll be here.