Bergamo mayor Giorgio Gori said he believes that the Champions League match between Atalanta and Valencia at the San Siro is partly responsible for the outbreak of COVID-19 in his region.

The match was attended by 44,000 fans.

"The match was a biological bomb," said Gori in a Facebook interview.

"At that time we did not know what was happening. The first patient in Italy was on February 23. If the virus was already circulating, the forty thousand fans who went to San Siro were infected.

"No one knew that the virus was already circulating among us."

A third of Valencia's team also tested positive for COVID-19 shortly after. 

Gori added that there other factors for the spread of the virus in northern Italy.

"The match didn't cause everything because the spark was really at the Alzano Lombardo hospital, as a patient with unrecognised pneumonia infected patients, doctors and nurses."