Italy's Olympic committee calls for sports events to be suspended on day of Pope Francis' funeral

ROME (AP) — The Italian national Olympic committee has asked for sports events to be suspended on Saturday, the day of Pope Francis' funeral.

After the government declared five days of national mourning, the Olympic committee, known by its Italian initials CONI, requested Tuesday for Saturday’s events to be suspended and for a minute of silence to take place at other sporting events.

The pope, who died Monday at 88, was a lifelong soccer fan.

Saturday’s events in Italy include three scheduled top-tier Serie A soccer games, one of them between league leader Inter Milan and Roma.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether other league and cup soccer games scheduled on other days this week might be affected too.

All sports events which had been scheduled for Monday in Italy were postponed following the death of Francis. That included four Serie A games which were moved to Wednesday. Games in Pope Francis’ home country of Argentina were also suspended.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

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