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As Italian football prepares to resume on Friday with the Coppa Italia semifinals followed by Serie A on June 20, the sport does so under the shadow of a national death toll that’s now surpassed 34,000. 

Runaway Premier League leaders Liverpool should play Everton at Goodison Park in the Merseyside derby instead of the game being switched to a neutral venue as local authorities can now provide a safe environment, Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson said on Sunday.

Liverpool will resume their quest for a first top-flight title in 30 years against Everton on June 21 but the venue for the behind-closed-doors fixture was not confirmed when the league released its revised fixtures for the season's restart.

Football players have to acknowledge their responsibility as role models and take a stand against racism, Bayern Munich midfielder Joshua Kimmich has said.

Kimmich was speaking following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis last week. Floyd's death has triggered a wave of outrage and protests in the United States.

Veró Boquete is one of the most accomplished footballers in the world. A short list of her achievements includes being Spain’s all-time top scorer, having a stadium named after her and fighting for women to be included in the FIFA video game.

The 33-year-old has been all over the world playing for clubs in the United States, Spain, Russia, Sweden, Germany, France and China. She recently returned to the NWSL last year after a five-year hiatus from the U.S.

USMNT and Newcastle United defender DeAndre Yedlin has penned a message of solidarity with George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement while revealing a gut wrenching text he received from his grandfather.

The 26-year-old has been in England since January of 2015 and with Newcastle for the past four seasons, and his grandfather said he’s glad that he’s “not living in the U.S. right now because he would fear for (his) life as a young black man.”

Queens Park Rangers chief executive Lee Hoos has slammed the English Football League's plans to resume the Championship (second-tier) season on June 20, saying clubs were informed of the decision only moments before it was made public.

The Championship has been suspended since March 8 due to the COVID-19 pandemic but the government has given the green light for elite sport to return from Monday behind closed doors provided strict conditions are met.

Barcelona star forward Lionel Messi said that both life and soccer have forever been changed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

COVID-19 is responsible for the deaths of 370,000 people worldwide as of Sunday afternoon. It has also wreaked havoc with the sports landscape for much of 2020.

LaLiga, Spain's top-flight soccer league, is set to resume on June 11, albeit without fans in the stands. The first match on the slate will feature the Seville derby between Real Betis and Sevilla.

Valencia has criticized Atalanta coach Gian Piero Gasperini for taking charge of his side's Champions League match against the Spanish side in March despite suffering from symptoms of the novel coronavirus.

Gasperini told Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport on Sunday that he felt ill on the day before the last-16 second leg match in Valencia on March 10, which was played without spectators as northern Italy was then the epicenter of the virus in Europe.

He also confirmed he has since tested positive from an antibodies test.

The adidas #hometeam campaign continued today with an exclusive interview with the G.O.A.T. Lionel Messi. Like the rest of the world, Messi’s life has been thrown upside down by the coronavirus with LaLiga suspended since March 12 and the Argentine’s prospective international summer — a Copa América on home soil — delayed until 2021.