ABSTRACT
On February 19, 2020, Italian soccer team Atalanta played Spanish side Valencia in Milan, Italy. The ensuing outbreak of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic in nearby Bergamo, Italy, led one official to describe the match as a “biological bomb.” With much of sport suspended across the globe for the foreseeable future, one of the questions for sport administrators to consider is how Covid-19 will alter security preparations. This chapter considers previous health-related security concerns in sport and analyzes how those responses can help inform the response to Covid-19. First, we provide an overview of how previous sport organizers have attempted to facilitate medical controls and consider how the handling of previous disease outbreaks could inform policies that could be applied on a more local level. Second, we consider how sport administrators could employ more advanced technology (i.e., thermal cameras) in use at other major venues to ensure safety and public health at their sporting events.
