A sudden surge of COVID-19 infections in football world has stoked fears of another wave of the damaging pandemic, as elite clubs are still grappling with the colossal impact of the deadly virus.

The most recent rises in locally transmitted cases resurfaced in French Ligue 1. Lille head coach Christophe Galtier confirmed on Saturday that Portuguese midfielder Renato Sanches, French international Jonathan Ikone and France under-21 star Jonathan Bamba have tested positive for COVID-19 during their club's latest screening.

Sanches, who was named the Young Player of the Tournament at Euro 2016 after helping Portugal clinch the title, had skipped Lille's friendly game with Belgian side Mouscron and returned to his home town, while Ikone and Bamba had been stayed at home in self-quarantine.

"After the first phase of training there were eight days of rest, and during those eight days the players contracted the virus." said Galtier. "The players are fine, but we are waiting to see the results of the next tests."

The flare-up of infections in France, whose topflight was the only one of Europe's five major leagues to opt for a premature cancellation, is a stark reminder of how easily the COVID-19 can come back to haunt places where the utmost precaution was being taken to try to tame the disease.

Lille didn't specify how did the trio contract the virus but Galtier suggested that the failure to adhere to social distancing rules might have contributed to the surge.

"I've had eight days off and I've seen how we behave," he said. "If we continue like this and we'll all return to confinement and it'll be a mess. We won't be able to avoid a second wave."

Similar cautionary tales have occurred repeatedly in recent days.

On Friday, the much-anticipated resumption of the Paraguayan football league was postponed after three teams were found to have confirmed cases of the coronavirus.

The Paraguayan football association did not revealed how many players or club staff members have been diagnosed with the COVID-19, but it confirmed that the three infected teams were San Lorenzo, 12 de Octubre and Guarani.

After a four-month hiatus, San Lorenzo were supposed to host General Diaz on Friday, while Guarani was scheduled to take on Guaireña and 12 de Octubre was to play Sol de America.

However, the coronavirus surge has thrown the football restart in Paraguay into fresh doubt.

"The positive cases were detected in exams performed in the middle of the week, with results available since last night," read a statement. "After those reports, the measures established in the protocols guiding the return of Paraguayan football were activated."

The same scenario also happened in Russia on Thursday, when the country's Premier League clash between Sochi and Tambov was called off after nine people tested positive for COVID-19.

It has not yet known how many of the nine were players but local media outlets said all nine cases came from Sochi.

The Russian topflight has been plagued with sputtering coronavirus cases since it restarted last month. Both Rostov and Orenburg were the major victims of the recent infections with the former being forced to lose several first-team players due to the virus and the latter be relegated after forfeiting two games as result of an outbreak in the squad.

Dynamo Moscow's game against FC Krasnodar also suffered postponement after three positive cases were spotted ahead of the showdown.

The Russian football season is scheduled to finish next Wednesday, but it remains unclear whether that could be possible given the backlog of delayed games and the possibility of further disruptions.