The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) team have no plans to change their warm-up preparations for the World Cup despite a warning from the US that the team must isolate for 21 days before arriving in the country, a team official said.
Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House task force for the World Cup, confirmed to ESPN that the DRC delegation needed to maintain a bubble where they were training in Belgium and isolate for 21 days or risk being denied entry after a deadly outbreak of the Ebola virus in the Central African country.
The DRC team are to be based in Houston at the tournament and will play an opening Group K fixture against Portugal on June 17, followed by matches against Colombia on June 23 in Guadalajara, Mexico, and against Uzbekistan on June 27 in Atlanta.
“We’ve been very clear to the DRC that they should maintain the integrity of their bubble for 21 days before they can come to Houston on June 11,” Giuliani said.
“We’ve made it very clear to the DRC government as well that they need to maintain that bubble or they risk not being able to travel to the US. We cannot be any clearer.”
But a team spokesperson said that at this stage there was no change to their schedule in the coming weeks, which includes a friendly against Denmark in Liege, Belgium, on June 3 and another against Chile in Cadiz, Spain, six days later.
The team had planned a three-day trip to Kinshasa next week as a celebratory send-off before heading to their first World Cup in 52 years, but that was cancelled before the US warning.
“We have kept our training programme. No player in the squad has come from DRC,” the official said.
“The friendly matches are still scheduled. The only modification to the programme has been the cancellation of the Kinshasa leg.”
The entire squad of players are based outside the DRC, mostly in Europe, including coach Sebastien Desabre. A few team officials arrived at the training camp in Belgium from the DRC earlier this week.
The World Health Organisation on Friday raised to “very high” the risk of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola turning into a national outbreak in the DRC and has declared the outbreak there and in neighbouring Uganda an emergency of international concern.
Nearly 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths have been recorded after the outbreak in the DRC.
The Herald