DR Congo have confirmed they will not alter their World Cup preparation schedule despite a stark warning from the United States that the squad must complete a 21-day isolation period before being permitted to enter the country, or risk having their entry blocked entirely.
Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House World Cup Task Force, stated on Friday that DR Congo’s football squad must maintain a protective bubble at their training base in Belgium and complete 21 days of isolation before travelling to Houston ahead of the tournament. “We have made it very clear to Congo that they must ensure a 21-day bubble before arriving in Houston on 11 June,” Giuliani told ESPN, adding that the Congo government had also been formally notified of the requirement.
A DR Congo spokesperson, however, told Al Jazeera that the squad’s planned schedule remains entirely unchanged. “We have kept our training programme as it is. None of the squad players have come from DR Congo,” the spokesperson said. The squad is currently based in Belgium, where they are due to play a preparatory match against Denmark on 3 June, followed by a friendly against Chile in Spain on 9 June.
The US demand follows growing concern over a rare strain of Ebola known as the Bundibugyo variant, which the World Health Organisation has warned carries a very high risk of developing into a national outbreak in DR Congo. The outbreak has been declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in both DR Congo and neighbouring Uganda.
Coach Sebastian Desabre and virtually all of the squad’s players are based outside DR Congo and play their club football in Europe, which the spokesperson cited as the basis for their confidence in proceeding without changes. A small number of team officials did travel from DR Congo to the Belgium training camp earlier this week, complicating the picture somewhat.
DR Congo’s group stage fixtures at the 2026 World Cup include two matches on American soil and one in Colombia. Their first game in the United States is against Portugal in Houston on 17 June, which is also the city designated as their tournament base. The standoff between the US authorities and the DR Congo delegation raises serious questions about whether the squad will be able to meet the isolation requirement while also completing their planned warm-up fixtures in Europe.
DR Congo are appearing at the World Cup for the first time in 52 years, making the stakes of the dispute all the more significant for a country whose footballing public has waited decades for this moment.
