Ebola fears infiltrate African sports

It started when the small Indian Ocean island of Seychelles refused entry to Sierra Leone’s soccer squad, fearing that the deadly Ebola virus would arrive from West Africa along with the players.

The decision by Seychelles health authorities two weeks ago gave its team no choice but to forfeit the game against Sierra Leone and withdraw from qualifying for the Africa Cup of Nations, the continent’s main football competition.

Sierra Leone and Liberia, two of the four soccer-mad West African countries affected by the worst Ebola outbreak ever recorded, have now stopped all football in their countries.

Togo said it would not travel to Guinea, another Ebola-affected country, for a game at the start of the final round of Africa Cup qualifying in the first week of September.

The CAF confirmed that Sierra Leone, where over 300 people have died in the outbreak, can’t host games.

Sierra Leone Football Association spokesman Abu Bakarr Kamara told the AP that it would get WHO emergency health certificates for home-based players to show they had not contracted Ebola.

The move by the Seychelles government last month to block Sierra Leone’s squad set a possible precedent for countries to refuse to host the Sierra Leone and Guinea teams.