Arsenal Football Club's Head Coach Mikel Arteta has tested positive for Coronavirus, the club said in a statement issued on Thursday night.
The club said that all those personnel who had recent close contact with Arteta will self-isolate, adding that these people will probably include the full first team squad and coaching staff. Arsenal's London Colney training centre and its Hale End Academy have also been closed off, the club said.
"Arsenal personnel who had recent close contact with Mikel will now self-isolate in line with Government health guidelines. We expect this to be a significant number of people from Colney, including the full first-team squad and coaching staff, as well as a smaller number of people from our Hale End Academy which we have also temporarily closed as a precaution", the club said in the statement.
"We expect those who did not have close contact with Mikel to return to work in the coming days. In the meantime our Colney and Hale End training centres will undergo a deep clean and our other club sites are operating as normal", the statement read.
The news comes a few hours after a decision was officially taken by UK authorities to allow Premier League matches to continue as scheduled this coming weekend.
Arsenal's visit to Manchester City last Wednesday had already been postponed by the Premier League as a "precautionary measure" after a small number of Arsenal players, along with four of the club’s staff, were confirmed to have been in close proximity to the Olympiakos and Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis, who tested positive for the virus, 13 days prior.
Arteta is not the only person associated with football to be affected by the virus. Manchester City defender Benjamin Mendy is currently self-isolating after a member of his family was admitted to hospital with symptoms of coronavirus, while three players from Leicester City's first team are also in isolation after showing symptoms.
Football outside of the UK has also been affected: Juventus' Daniele Rugani has tested positive for the virus, as has Sampdoria's Manolo Gabbiadini.
Many leagues besides in the United Kingdom have been stopped, including Malta's own football structure, where all games in the coming 10 days were suspended as a precaution for the virus.