Brazil’s World Cup qualifier against Argentina has been suspended after the Brazilian health authorities and police entered the field of play to detain four Argentinian players who failed to quarantine after entering the country.
In utterly surreal scenes, the game was halted after ten minutes following the incident. Prior to kick-off the Premier League quartet Emiliano Martinez, Cristian Romero, Giovani Lo Celso, and Emiliano Buendia were investigated by the Brazilian authorities for a breach of coronavirus regulations.
It was alleged that they failed to declare that they had been in England prior to arriving in Brazil. Currently, anyone doing this is required to quarantine for 14 days but the players did not – for obvious reasons.
Following an investigation, it seemed that the foursome were in the clear with Lo Celso and Romero both starting the game while Martinez and Buendia were named on the bench.
However, in the opening exchanges, Brazilian health officials stormed the pitch in an attempt to detain the players.
Soon after the Argentina team returned to the dressing room with captain Lionel Messi emerging to play mediator after a few minutes.
Following close to an hour of stalemate, CONMEBOL finally released a statement on the matter which read: “By decision of the match referee, the match organized by FIFA between Brazil and Argentina for the World Cup Qualifiers is suspended.
