REUTERS: The SportAccord World Sport and Business Summit has been cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak, organisers said on Saturday.

The international conference, which attracts top sports administrators, international sports federations, Olympic officials, sponsors and major sports organisers, was due to be held in Beijing from April 19-24 and was relocated to Lausanne, Switzerland in February.



"Our priority is the health and welfare of our International Federations and delegates attending our event," SportAccord President Raffaele Chiulli said in a statement.

"This decision has been taken with the utmost consideration for those who were planning to attend SportAccord 2020 in Lausanne.

"This is obviously an extremely unfortunate situation and we are saddened that our community will not be able to attend our annual gathering, but we wanted to announce this decision at the earliest opportunity."

More than 145,000 people have been infected by the coronavirus across the world and 5,419 have died, according to a Reuters tally.



(Reporting by Simon Jennings in Bengaluru; editing by Tony Lawrence)