Belenenses had to compete in a team of nine players due to a corona outbreak. After Benfica was 7-0 at break, the game was canceled. Now new details come to light.
Several Belenenses players tested positive for the Omikron variant been.
The whole thing has a serious background: On Saturday evening there was a game that Haris Seferovic will never forget.
With Benfica, the Nati star played against a team with only nine players.
That's what
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Huge scandal in the Portuguese league is all about.
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On Saturday evening there was the scandal game between Belenenses and Benfica, which had to be canceled due to corona chaos.
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Now it is known that Belenenses has several Omicron cases.
The new Corona variant Omikron was also detected for the first time in Portugal. The virus was found in 13 players and other members of the first division football club Belenenses SAD, said the general secretary of the health authority, Graça Freitas, on Monday, as the newspaper «Público» reported.
The National Health Institute Ricardo Jorge announced on Monday that only one of the players was recently in South Africa, where the variant was first discovered. That would indicate the first known transmission of the new variant outside of South Africa. Those affected are currently isolated and not seriously ill. In order to stop the spread of the new virus variant, the health authority has ordered stricter quarantine requirements and further tests in these cases.
Even before it became known that the Omikron cases were involved, a particularly large number of Corona cases at Belenenses had already led to a huge scandal on Saturday. Because the bottom of the league could hardly muster players against their city rivals Benfica Lisbon, the game was canceled in the 50th minute when the score was 0: 7. The Swiss national team star Haris Seferovic scored two goals.
«The league is a shame»
After the game, Belenenses President Rui Pedro Soares said at the press conference that the league had been informed in the afternoon and that they did not want to play in view of the many corona-related failures. The league replied that the club had at least eight players who could have played.
Even during the game, the fans in the stadium were stunned and chanted: “The league is a shame” and “The game is a shame”. The match will now be rated 3-0 for Benfica. Why Belenenses did not ask for a game to be rescheduled initially remained unclear. The newspaper “Record” reports that the Belenenses boss cried during the break.
Pandemic not over in Portugal
Freitas rejected a responsibility from the health authority in approving the game. She spoke out in favor of having all participants in the game tested by both teams.
The Portuguese called on them to take measures such as wearing a mask, ventilating closed rooms and reducing contacts outside of their own family seriously. Despite the high vaccination rate in Portugal, the pandemic is not over.
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(nih/dpa)