Former Watford transfer consultant Nicola Salerno has said the decision to postpone the Premier League because of the coronavirus outbreak should have been made sooner than it was.

The league was eventually suspended until at least April 3 following an emergency meeting on Friday morning after a number of teams were directly affected by the virus.

However, the Italian former Hornets employee compared the cases in the UK with those in Italy and said that more should have been done to prevent gatherings taking place earlier in both countries and that the issue was not taken seriously enough by those in charge at the beginning.

"I would say it was certainly possible and necessary to intervene earlier," he said in an interview with Mediagol.

"From a technical point of view, it certainly wasn’t a timely decision. People didn’t expect this level to be reached. I would say the issue was taken a little lightly, both by some politicians and by personalities from the world of entertainment.

“Someone likened the emergency to a cold, a manageable thing that would be overcome without major effects. The situation then became drastic and it still is. We aren’t coming out of it and therefore everything becomes more and more worrying and difficult."