The head of the World Cup Committee at the White House, Andrew Giuliani, told the ESPN Sports Network: “We made it very clear to Congo: They must maintain their isolation for 21 days before they can come to Houston on June 11,” the start of the World Cup.
To meet this deadline, the team currently training in Belgium had to begin isolation on Friday.
Giuliani added: “If other players join (the national team), they should have an isolated bubble separate from the team.”
He warned: “If they arrive and one of them shows symptoms of the disease, this exposes the entire team to the risk of not participating in the World Cup.”
Giuliani confirmed in a statement to Agence France-Presse that the White House “encourages the team to protect its players from unnecessary exposure to the virus and maintain the integrity of its health bubble, to ensure its participation in the tournament.”
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, whose training camp will be in Houston, Texas, plays in Group 11, and will face Portugal on June 17 in Houston, then Colombia on the 23rd of the same month in Guadalajara, Mexico, and finally Uzbekistan 4 days later in Atlanta.
The World Health Organization issued an international health alert in response to the outbreak of the Ebola virus for the seventeenth time in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The organization considers the risk of the epidemic “very high” at the national level, as it recorded 82 confirmed cases, including 7 deaths, in the country where the disease is spreading “rapidly.” (Sky News)
