The Democratic Republic of Congo’s World Cup squad will have to isolate for 21 days before they will be allowed to enter the United States because of the deadly Ebola outbreak in the country.
The executive director of the White House task force for the World Cup, Andrew Giuliani, has informed ESPN that Fifa, the team and the Congolese government were told that players were to remain in a “bubble” in Belgium where they are training at the moment.
Giuliani told ESPN: “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 11. 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 that there is nothing that’s going to come in or near our borders here on this.”
The official also told AFP in a statement that the priority was the “safety and security of the American people, participating teams, and millions of fans”.
The Congolese team had already been forced to cancel World Cup build-up events in Kinshasa due to the Ebola virus outbreak.
The squad had planned to hold a training session open to fans as well as a send-off ceremony with the country’s head of state Felix Tshisekedi on Monday as they prepare for the World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the US.
However, travel restrictions imposed by the US CDC in response to the outbreak made it necessary to change those plans. The CDC has prohibited the entry of non-US passport holders who have been in DR Congo, Uganda, or South Sudan in the previous 21 days.
According to reports, the team plan to arrive in the U.S. on June 10 or 11.
DR Congo play the first game at the World Cup against Portugal in Houston, before taking on Colombia in Guadalajara and wrapping up their group campaign against Uzbekistan in Atlanta.
As of Wednesday, there were 600 suspected cases in the Ebola outbreak and 139 suspected deaths in DR Congo.
