Chronicle Editor
CHELSEA goalkeeper Edouard Mendy was among a new group of Senegal players to test positive for the coronavirus at the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon.
Mendy, captain Kalidou Koulibaly and striker Famara Diedhiou returned positive results on Saturday in mandatory testing for the Senegal squad 48 hours ahead of their opening game of the African Cup against Zimbabwe this afternoon, the Senegal Football Federation said.
All three will be ruled out of today’s game unless subsequent testing proves they were false positives.
Senegal, who are one of the title favourites at the Afcon, already had three other players and six members of the team management test positive for the virus before the squad departed Dakar for Cameroon on Wednesday.
Mendy’s positive test raised concerns for Senegal’s star forward Sadio Mane, who flew to Dakar from Britain with Mendy on a chartered jet. Photographs showed the pair sitting close together on the flight without masks.
Many of the 24 teams preparing to play in the month-long Afcon have been affected by virus cases in their squads, although Zimbabwe announced Sunday, they had no positives in their mandatory tests.
The tournament started yesterday in the Cameroon capital Yaoundé with the host team playing Burkina Faso in the opening game. Ethiopia faced Cape Verde in the day’s other game.
The Afcon was meant to be played in early 2021, but was postponed for a year because of the pandemic. However, it kicked off a year later with virus cases surging again because of the emergence of the omicron variant.
Host Cameroon announced cases in their squad in the build-up to the tournament and Burkina Faso may be missing five players for the opening game because of the virus.
Gabon and Arsenal forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is among numerous other players to test positive for the virus ahead of the tournament. – First Post
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