The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) have no plans to change their preparations for the World Cup despite a warning from the United States that the national team must isolate for 21 days before arriving in the country, The Guardian reports.
Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House Task Force for the World Cup, told ESPN that US officials had informed FIFA, the DRC team and the government in Kinshasa that the squad was to remain in a bubble in Belgium, where players are training, due to the African country’s deadly Ebola outbreak.
“We’ve been very clear to Congo that they should maintain the integrity of their bubble for 21 days before they can then come to Houston on June 11th,” Giuliani said. “We’ve made it very clear to the Congo government as well, that they need to maintain that bubble or they risk not being able to travel to the United States. We cannot be any clearer. We want to make sure there is nothing that’s going to come in or near our borders.”
In a separate statement to AFP sent by the US Department of Homeland Security, Giuliani emphasized that the priority was the “safety and security of the American people, participating teams, and millions of fans”.
US officials said this week that the DRC squad would be exempt from a travel ban that temporarily bars entry to the US for non-Americans who have been in the DRC, Uganda or South Sudan in the previous 21 days.
“We encourage the team to protect their players from unneeded exposure and maintain the integrity of their bubble to ensure that they are able to participate in the tournament,” Giuliani said.
However, a DR Congo team spokesperson said there was no change to their schedule, which includes a friendly against Denmark in Liège on 3 June and another against Chile in Cádiz six days later. “We have kept our training programme. No player in the squad has come from DRC,” the official said.
The entire squad of players are based outside the DRC, mostly in Europe, as is the coach, Sébastien Desabre. A few team officials arrived at the training camp in Belgium from the DR Congo this week. The team had planned a three-day trip to Kinshasa next week as a celebratory send-off before they head to their first World Cup in 52 years, but that has been cancelled.
The World Health Organization on Friday raised to “very high” the risk of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, for which there are no approved vaccines or treatments, turning into a national outbreak in the DRC and has declared the outbreak there and in neighbouring Uganda an emergency of international concern.
It listed 82 confirmed cases and seven confirmed deaths in the DR Congo, but almost 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths.
DR Congo have qualified for the World Cup for only the second time after playing in 1974, when the country was known as Zaire. They planned to be based in Houston during the tournament, where they will play their first Group K match on 17 June against Portugal.