The Athletic have revealed that Giovani Lo Celso and Cristian Romero are under investigation by Brazilian authorities for not following the quarantine protocols.
Lo Celso and Romero, along with Aston Villa pair, Emiliano Buendia and Emiliano Martinez, have travelled to South America for Argentina’s World Cup qualifiers despite the Premier League restricting players from travelling to ‘red list’ countries for international duty.
The four players are expected to isolate and train in Croatia at the end of the international break before returning to the UK.
The Athletic have revealed that the Spurs and Aston Villa stars have now been accused of breaking quarantine rules. The four players are part of Argentina’s squad to face Brazil at Sao Paulo this evening.
It is explained that those travelling to Brazil from Great Britain, Northern Ireland, South Africa or India are expected to serve a quarantine period of 14 days on entering the country.
However, Lo Celso, Romero, Buendia and Martinez had allegedly declared they had not passed through any of these countries over the past fortnight.
The National Health Surveillance Agency of Brazil said in a statement: “The players in question, who arrived in Brazil on a flight from Caracas (Venezuela) to Guarulhos, declared they had not spent time in any of the four countries with restrictions on them in the last 14 days.
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“Yesterday, Friday, unofficial news reached Anvisa reporting alleged false statements made by these travellers. False information provided to the Brazilian authorities may constitute sanitary infractions antravellerson of criminal laws.”
The Sao Paulo State Health Secretariat said about the incident: “An epidemiological and sanitary investigation has begun.”
The report goes on to add that if the four players are not able to provide documents showing they were exempt from the 14-day quarantine, they could be stopped from playing in this evening’s World Cup qualifier.
Spurs Web Opinion
This is clearly a case of bad planning by the Argentine FA as one would have surely expected them to get permission for their players to travel to Brazil before calling up the likes of Romero and Lo Celso to international duty.
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