Congo must isolate for 21 days or risk their ability to enter the U.S. for the World Cup as the country deals with an outbreak of Ebola, White House Task Force for the World Cup executive director Andrew Giuliani told ESPN Friday.
Giuliani said the U.S. has told FIFA, the Congolese national team and the Congolese government that the team must maintain a bubble in Belgium, where it is currently training and is scheduled to play two warmup games.
“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,” he 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.”
Giuliani said that the U.S. is taking the health and safety of the World Cup extremely seriously.
“We want to make sure that there is nothing that’s going to come in or near our borders here on this,” he said.
All of the Congo players and the team’s French coach, Sébastien Desabre, are based outside of the central African country, with most of them playing in France. Some team staff based in Congo left the country this week.
“If there are other people that are going to be coming in, they need to have a separate bubble from that team. If they end up coming, and any of those people end up symptomatic, they are risking the entire team being able to come and compete in this World Cup,” Giuliani said.
Giuliani added that the CDC has staff in Europe monitoring two American doctors who are in quarantine after being exposed to Ebola, and they have been discussing whether to send staff to Belgium to “check in on the team.”
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Last week, Congo confirmed an outbreak of a rare type of Ebola known as Bundibugyo, which is thought to have killed more than 130 people and caused nearly 600 suspected cases.
The World Health Organization has declared it a public health emergency of international concern. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week that the U.S. would ban entry of all foreign nationals who had been in Congo, Uganda and South Sudan within the past three weeks. The ban lasts for 30 days.
On Wednesday, Congo cancelled a three-day World Cup preparation training camp and a planned farewell to fans in the capital Kinshasa.
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Congo are scheduled to play World Cup-warmup games against Denmark in Liege, Belgium on June 3 and Chile in southern Spain on June 9.
The Leopards have been drawn in Group K. They face Portugal for their opening game in Houston on June 17, then face Colombia in Guadalajara on June 23 before playing Uzbekistan in Atlanta for their final group game on June 27.
President Donald Trump appointed Giuliani, the son of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, to lead the World Cup task force last May.
