Football has made a welcome return in South Korea, becoming the first major nation to start a competition that was impacted by the coronavirus outbreak.
On Friday, K-League defending champions Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors got their title defence off to a winning start against the Suwon Samsung Bluewings in an empty World Cup Stadium which would usually host more than 40,000 fans.
During the coronavirus pandemic, football has been played in smaller nations like Belarus, Burundi, Tajikistan and Nicaragua, but the K-League is the first competition to resume that was initially suspended.
The K-League was supposed to have started on February 29 - when South Korea's COVID-19 cases were at their worst - forcing the league to suspend play indefinitely.
With the number of new cases steadily falling last month, the league settled on the second Friday of May to begin its new season.
The 1100 K-League players and staff were all required to take tests, which all came back negative.
Any new infections during the season, shortened from 38 to 27 rounds, will require the affected club and their opponents to sit out competition for two weeks.
So far South Korea has 10,822 cases with 256 deaths, although 9484 people have recovered.
There were no pre-game handshakes before the match as players all underwent pre-game temperature checks, while all media and ground staff wore masks.
Coaches and substitutes on the sidelines also wore protective facewear, while chants and stadium noise was played through the speakers at Jeonju World Cup Stadium.
Instead of fans in the stands, giant yellow and white cards saying "#CU SOON STAY STRONG" were placed on empty seats.
Jeonbuk went onto win the match 1-0 thanks to a late header from 41-year-old striker Lee Dong-gook.
Suwon and Australian international Terry Antonis was sent off during the match for dangerous tackle.
The match was broadcast on TV around Asia and Europe and more than 25,000 watched the game on YouTube.
Saturday sees three games take place, and there are two more on Sunday as the first weekend of the season kicks off.
