The Brazilian Police opened an investigation against the four footballers who violated the country’s sanitary protocol, a fact that led to the suspension of the superclassic with Argentina on Sunday for the qualifying rounds of the Qatar 2022 World Cup.
“We are opening the establishment of a process to investigate the possible crime of ideological falsehood,” the Federal Police told Efe.
The footballers involved “were already notified when leaving the country, which is a standard procedure, and formally heard in their statements,” the source announced.
The investigation also seeks to establish whether there was an “administrative offense” and will be conducted by the Guarulhos International Airport Police Station, which operates for Sao Paulo and through which goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez, midfielder Emiliano Buendía, defender Cristian Romero and defender entered the country. midfielder Giovani Lo Celso.
Martínes and Buendía are active at Aston Villa, and Romero and Lo Celso at Tottenham.
After playing with their clubs, these players joined the Argentine national team for the World Cup qualifying matches in a triple match that began last Thursday.
Martínez, Romero and Lo Celso played the six minutes that the game lasted until its suspension, and Buendía was on the reserve bench.
The 4 players arrived in Brazil on Friday with the rest of the delegation from Caracas, where Argentina defeated Venezuela 1-3 on Thursday.
The current Brazilian health protocol requires a 10-day quarantine for people who have been in the United Kingdom, India and South Africa in the last two weeks.
According to local media, Fernando Ariel Batista, identified as an employee of the Argentine Football Association (AFA), was in charge of filling out the immigration and health forms of the entire delegation.
The 4 players, according to the Brazilian authorities, provided false information about their stay in England during the immigration process, a situation that was verified by the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa, regulator), which, in a note, confirmed that the delegation Argentina was notified of the incident.
Anvisa indicated that it held on Saturday a meeting with members of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF), the Argentine delegation, the Ministry of Health and the São Paulo regional health secretary, in which the quarantine of the 4 players.
However, according to the Brazilian health authority, the players ignored it and trained on Saturday night in the reconnaissance of the Neo Química Arena stadium.
Also, Anvisa explained that on the same Sunday there was an “attempt” to notify the four players to return “immediately” to their country of origin, but they refused to sign the document delivered by the authorities present at the stadium.
For its part, the AFA alleged that the footballers were never notified and they were “surprised” by the presence of health prosecutors on the field when 6 minutes of play had elapsed.
Venezuelan referee Jesús Valenzuela decided to interrupt the match after Argentina left the court and locked himself in the locker room. The final decision was left to FIFA, responsible for the World Cup qualifiers. EFE (HN)