Congo has canceled its World Cup buildup events in Kinshasa and will stage them in Belgium instead as the Ebola outbreak in the country worsens. The team said it will keep preparing in Europe, abandoning a planned fan training session and a send-off ceremony with President Felix Tshisekedi that had been set for Monday in the capital.
Dodo Landu said the switch is limited in scope because the squad had only been due to spend three days in Kinshasa. “The change is not very big, because we only had three days in Kinshasa,” Landu said, adding: “We will just maintain the program in Belgium, the event on May 25 will take place in Brussels instead of Kinshasa.”
The move comes as the United States tightens its response to the outbreak. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has barred entry to non-U.S. passport holders who have been in Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the previous 21 days, and all members of staff from the Congolese team based in Congo must leave the country by Thursday if they are to enter the United States without restrictions. The team plans to arrive in the U.S. on June 10 or 11.
The Texas Department of State Health Services said Wednesday that it was working closely with the CDC, FIFA and local health departments. That coordination matters because Congo is set to base itself in Houston for the tournament, with its first group match against Portugal there before games against Colombia in Guadalajara and Uzbekistan in Atlanta.
Wednesday also brought a clearer picture of the team itself. Congo announced its entire playing squad, most of which is based at clubs outside Congo and largely in Europe. That makes the health rules less disruptive for the players than for staff tied to Congo, but it also shows how much of the World Cup operation has already been moved away from home.
The timing is hard to separate from the scale of the outbreak. As of Wednesday, Congo had 600 suspected Ebola cases and 139 suspected deaths. The original Kinshasa plans were supposed to give the team a public send-off, but the new schedule leaves the country with a quieter departure and the squad with a longer road to Houston.
For Congo, the immediate calculation is straightforward: keep the team moving, keep the staff eligible, and avoid turning the buildup into another point of contact as the outbreak spreads. Brussels is now the staging ground, Houston is next, and the World Cup begins under conditions that have already forced the team to change its route before it has played a match.
