The thirteen cases of Covid-19 identified in footballers from Portuguese club Belenenses SAD, which for this reason could not field enough players on Saturday against Benfica, are the first in Portugal to be "linked" to the Omicron variant of the coronavirus , announced Monday the National Institute of Health (Insa).
"Preliminary tests carried out by Insa strongly suggest that all thirteen cases associated with Belenenses SAD players are linked to the worrying variant Omicron," the public agency said in a statement, adding that one of them had recently traveled to South Africa.
The staging of the 12th matchday of the Portuguese league between the two Lisbon clubs provoked a lively controversy, the meeting not having been interrupted until the beginning of the second period when the Belenenses SAD team were reduced to six. players as Benfica led 7-0.
Struck by more than twenty cases of Covid among its workforce and its management, the professional team formed after a split from the historic club in the Belém district was only able to start the meeting with nine players, calling on young players from his reserve team and repositioning a 20-year-old goalkeeper as a striker.
"A black page in Portuguese football"
After the break, only seven Belenenses players had the courage to return to the pitch and, after the injury of one of them, the referee ended up whistling the early end of the match according to the rules when a team is reduced to six players.
At the end of the match, the president of Belenenses SAD, Rui Pedro Soares, assured to have asked the Portuguese League to postpone the meeting which, according to him, answered that the meeting could start with at least eight players and that the club exposed himself to sanctions if he forfeited.
An official of the League quoted in the local media confirmed having had a telephone contact with the president of Belenenses but, according to him, the body did not receive a "formal request" for a postponement of the match. .
"It's a black page in Portuguese football, but Benfica is in no way responsible," for his part reacted the president of Benfica, Rui Costa.
"Shame", headlined the sports daily A Bola on Sunday, estimating that the public had attended "a match that should never have taken place", while Record, the other major Portuguese sports daily, proclaimed that the national football had "hit rock bottom