SportAccord set to shift to later in year after ASOIF decision

SportAccord, the annual world sport and business summit, is set to be delayed until October because of travel restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The event, one of the most eagerly attended on the international sports business calendar, was slated for Ekaterinburg, Russia from 23 to 28 May, but looks set to be pushed back to later in the year.

No official announcement has come from the organisers, but yesterday the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations announced that its general assembly, traditionally held as part of SportAccord, will now be staged as a virtual meeting on 8 June.

ASOIF cited the "ongoing coronavirus pandemic" for its decision.

Russia has almost 350,000 active cases of Covid-19.

The 2020 SportAccord convention was due to take place in Beijing in mid-April, but was cancelled because of the pandemic, and plans to relocate it to Lausanne were also scrapped.