Seven additional people from South Korean football club Seongnam FC have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, bringing the total caseload on the team to 22.

Seongnam announced Monday that five players and two staffers have been diagnosed with COVID-19. After the first case from the K League 1 club was reported on July 11, the rest of the team received tests. The team now has 14 players and eight staffers on the COVID-19 list.

Those who initially tested negative have since exhibited symptoms and turned in positive results, a trend Seongnam officials attributed to the passing of the virus' incubation period.

The cluster infection among Seongnam players and cases from other clubs forced the K League to postpone eight matches scheduled for later this month.

The K League went into a midseason break after matches at the end of May. The first Seongnam case came at the end of their training camp in Goseong, some 470 kilometers east of Seoul in Gangwon Province. (Yonhap)