Entertainment across the globe is on pause. One of the first things to go was sports and it devastated fans everywhere. Basketball took the first big hit after players in the NBA tested positive for COVID-19. Now, the sporting world is trying to figure out how to get back to business and fútbol is leading the way.

Fútbol leagues around the world are in talks about how to restart their season.

La Liga is ramping up for a return, but one club's players and coaches have put out a statement expressing that they're 'afraid' given the riskshttps://t.co/19ymWaancN

— Planet Fútbol (@si_soccer) May 6, 2020

According to FIFA, more than 200 million people are involved in professional soccer around the world. Roughly 4 percent of the world’s population is involved with the global sport. The pandemic brought a sudden stop to the season that was 11 matches shy of ending.

Team coaches are eager to get their players back on the field, even if it means no fans.

If you look at the date, you know we are the first.Taiwan#RakutenMonkeys #CPBL pic.twitter.com/DAiIDIVpBS

— Michelle Ho (@Michell07207861) May 10, 2020

Asian sporting leagues have already started to experiment with using cutouts of fans in the stands. Barcelona FC is implementing the same strategy because it is still not safe for people to gather in large numbers for sporting events, concerts, etc. To continue the fight against COIVD-19 while restarting the economy, sports leagues are trying to figure out the best way to do it. Some leagues are doing mass testing of all of the athletes involved and it is already showing some sobering results.

Coronavirus tests are concerning some athletes in the soccer leagues.

OFFICIAL – La #Liga has confirmed that 5 players across Spain's top two divisions have tested positive for #Coronavirus. #Covid_19

— Nicolò Schira (@NicoSchira) May 10, 2020

Spain’s La Liga tested their major and second league players to join other soccer teams from around the world in opening up. Five total players tested positive for COVID-19 showing the lengths to which this virus has spread. La Liga has said that those players will have to quarantine and cannot join their teams in individual and small group exercises until they show two negative tests 72 hours apart.

“Between the clubs of [the first and second divisions], five positive cases have been detected among players, all of them asymptomatic and in the final stage of the illness,” read a statement from La Liga.

There is pushback from fans and non-soccer fans alike over the move to restart the leagues.

“A couple of hundreds of tests” are a couple of hundred of people who go untested who are showing symptoms, who could not be tested because the tests are used on footballers who have no business returning.

— Xav Salazar (@XavsFutbol) May 8, 2020

There are reports around the world of test shortages. In the U.S., people without symptoms are essentially blocked from taking tests to see if they have COVID-19. The U.S. government has forgone testing kits from health organizations and it has led to an abysmal testing rate and response in the U.S. Los Angeles became the first major city in the U.S. to offer free testing to all residents by appointment. Some people think that the soccer leagues fighting to reopen and use tests to maintain a form of entertainment is reckless and hurting those who need the tests most.

Fútbol teams have already started bringing their players in for practice individually to get the league up and running again despite fears.

Leo Messi and Antoine Griezmann were among players pictured arriving one by one in their cars at the club's training centre early this morning. https://t.co/rPNS52MC4N #RTEsoccer

— RTÉ Soccer (@RTEsoccer) May 6, 2020

Barcelona FC is the first team to show up to practices on staggered schedules. Training, which just started, is slowly going to be ramped up over the course of four weeks to make sure that the leagues can get up and running to play games in empty stadiums to protect fans from spreading COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. Cases continue to increase around the world showing that the fight if far from won.

Los Angeles police, fire departments see increase in COVID-19 cases https://t.co/arp6oQfykc

— KTLA (@KTLA) May 11, 2020

The U.S. currently has more than 1.3 million cases of COVID-19. Th\e overall total of cases in the world is over 4.1 million. The U.S. currently has the largest number of infections and death from COVID-19 than anywhere else in the world. More than 70,000 people in the U.S. have died of COVID-19 and without a national plan in place, some states are rushing to reopen their economies.

READ: ICE Reports The First Death Of A Detained Migrant Due To Covid-19 But Some Fear There Could Be Many More Victims

The relationship between Joan Sebastian and Vicente Fernandez and the Fernandez family goes way back, but is not exempt from problems.

“El poeta del pueblo,” or “the poet of the pueblo” as Joan Sebastian was dubbed, would have been 69 years old on April 8th, 2020. The Mexican singer-songwriter, who was famous for his heartbreakingly beautiful songs, 42 of which landed him on the Hot Latin Songs Chart, died on July 12, 2015, in his ranch in Juliantla, Mexico after battling bone cancer for 13 years. He was 64 years old.

Sebastian had a troubled life. So troubled that one would say the storyline mirrors what we see in a movie or telenovela. He had eight children with five women, two who died, and this was before he was diagnosed with cancer, a disease he fought ferociously until the end performing up until his last days. 

For his birthday, Mexican star Alejandro Fernandez, who considered Sebastian to be a mentor, released a version of “Esto y más.”

Alejandro Fernandez was the opening act for Joan Sebastian 20 years ago. It was the first tour of Fernandez’s career. 

“I grew up listening to Joan’s music. But it was more than that — my dad, Joan and I went on tour in the mid to late 1990’s,” Fernandez told Billboard during an interview.

“Ever since that moment, I felt close to Joan. We may have had years between us, but we got along great and we were very good friends.”

The single and the video were released on Wednesday. Fernandez and his label, Universal Music Latin Entertainment, donated all proceeds from the song to the foundation “MusiCares COVID-19” in the US and “MusicaMexico COVID-19” in Mexico, which helps musicians and members of the guild.

When Fernandez traveled for the first time with his father and Sebastian many years ago, Sebastian asked Vicente Fernandez for permission to take his son out one night.

“He promised to take care of me,” Alejandro said laughing. “Many years later, I was on tour with Marco Antonio Solis and Joan and his younger son came to our afterparty following the San Diego show. When Joan had to go, I asked for permission for his bebé to stay.”

In 2015, the year of Sebastian’s death, Vicente Fernandez revealed that they had had strong disagreements.

These disagreements, although not enough to end their friendship, did cause them to stop recording music together.

According to the “Charro de Huentitán,” Fernandez had hired Sebastian to record a second album following the success of “Para Siempre”, an agreement that ended when Joan presented previously published versions of his songs.

“He would give me the songs and say they were unpublished, as they’d have to be if a producer is making music, and I was hurt because there were about five songs he gave me already produced by his other friends. That’s not okay,” Fernandez explained when asked what caused their friendship to change. 

“Then he would record half the song and after recording the other half with me he would edit them, upload them, and title them ‘Joan Sebastian and Vicente Fernandez Duet.’ I didn’t like that either.”

“It didn’t drive us apart, we just stopped making music together,” Fernandez states. Noticeably distraught, Vicente Fernandez revealed that just before Joan’s death they left their differences aside in an emotional reunion where the late singer apologized for ever having offended Fernandez. In fact, he says, the day of Joan Sebastian’s death, he was waiting for his lifelong friend to join him for dinner.

For more on the Fernandez’s and Joan Sebastian, head over to Latido music.