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England’s men’s and women’s Six Nations matches in Rome will be played behind closed doors after Italy’s government ordered all sporting events to take place without fans until April 3 due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The matches had been due to take place on March 14 and 15.

All Serie A games will also be played without fans. The move is likely to see the Italian soccer league resume in full this weekend after the calendar was pushed back a week.

The decision follows an outbreak of Covid-19 in Italy, where 3,090 people have been diagnosed with the virus and 107 people have died. 

The Italian government issued a new decree on Wednesday evening, with measures it hopes will help contain the spread of the virus.

It is still unclear whether the Six Nations matches will go ahead at all.

Italy’s match against Ireland, which was scheduled for March 7, had already been postponed.

The Italian soccer league’s governing body has yet to release a revised schedule, but reports say the six Serie A matches that were postponed last week will now be played this weekend.

That includes one of the biggest matches of the season, the Juventus-Inter game, known as the Derby d’Italia, or Italy’s derby.

Four Serie A matches went ahead last weekend with fans present as they were taking place in areas that had not been affected by measures to control the outbreak.

A decree on Sunday extended the suspension of all sporting events in Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna until March 8.

The region of Lombardy is the epicentre of Italy’s outbreak and there are further clusters in the other two northern regions.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated. Follow HuffPost UK on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.