Andrew Giuliani said Congo's national team must keep a strict 21-day bubble in Belgium or risk being barred from entering the United States for the World Cup. "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," Giuliani said Friday.
The demand follows a week in which Congo confirmed an outbreak of a rare Ebola strain, Bundibugyo, that is thought to have killed more than 130 people and produced nearly 600 suspected cases; the World Health Organization has declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has prohibited the entry of non-U.S. passport holders who had been in Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the previous 21 days, and U.S. officials say the broader travel ban will last 30 days. Giuliani said the U.S. told FIFA, the Congolese national team and the Congolese government the team must maintain a bubble in Belgium and that he has "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."
That instruction landed as the Congolese team continued preparations in Belgium and canceled a three-day training camp and a planned farewell to fans in Kinshasa this week. Team manager Dodo Landu said the change was minor: "The change is not very big, because we only had three days in Kinshasa," and he added, "We will just maintain the program in Belgium, the event on May 25 will take place in Brussels instead of Kinshasa." Most of the playing squad are based at clubs outside Congo, the bulk in Europe, and the team plans to arrive in the U.S. on June 10 or 11 to be based in Houston for group play.
The logistics produce a sharp friction. Congo is scheduled to play Denmark in Liege, Belgium, on June 3 and Chile in southern Spain on June 9 — fixtures that overlap the window Giuliani said must be preserved before a June 11 move to Houston. Giuliani warned of the stakes: "We want to make sure that there is nothing that's going to come in or near our borders here on this," and he added a further caveat about outsiders around the squad: "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." All members of staff from the team based in Congo were required to leave the country by Thursday to be allowed into the U.S. unrestricted.
The practical consequence is immediate: the team must reconcile the U.S. requirement for a 21-day secure period in Belgium with warmup fixtures and the canceled Kinshasa events, or face exclusion. Congo will open its World Cup group in Houston on June 17 against Portugal and will play Colombia in Guadalajara and Uzbekistan in Atlanta; whether the squad can preserve an unbroken bubble in the coming days will decide if it arrives in Houston intact. The single most consequential unanswered question is whether the Congolese federation, FIFA and the U.S. task force led by Andrew Giuliani can enforce a flawless 21-day separation in time for the team's June 11 transfer to Houston — because without it, the team may be denied entry and the World Cup itself would lose a competitor it was preparing to bring to the field.
