The surreal images of members of the Anvisa health agency entering the lawn to stop the Brazil-Argentina match on Sunday night, were on the front pages of newspapers around the world on Monday, especially in Argentina, where Ole called the scene “the biggest masquerade in world football”.
In a statement released Monday, Fifa said “to regret the scenes which preceded the interruption of the match, which prevented millions of supporters from attending a match between two of the greatest nations in the world”.
Football fans were salivating at the idea of this Superclasico, the first opposition between Neymar and Lionel Messi since the five-time Argentinian Golden Ball joined the Brazilian at Paris SG, but they were treated to a sad spectacle due to a succession of inconsistencies.
“Fake news”
The first of them: how Argentina were able to select four players playing in the Premier League, while nine Brazilians playing in England were not released by their clubs?
Of these four players, three started the meeting: Tottenham midfielders Giovanni Lo Celso and Cristian Romero as well as goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez (Aston Villa).
According to Anvisa, they allegedly provided “false information” in their entry form to Brazil, failing to report that they had stayed in the UK for the last fourteen days prior to their arrival.
The agency says it acted under a June 23 ministerial order banning entry into Brazilian territory to any foreign person from the UK, India or South Africa, to prevent the spread of variants of Covid-19.
But that does not explain why the agents waited for the match to start to burst onto the pitch, instead of intervening before the meeting, knowing that the players had been in Sao Paulo since Friday.
“They had 72 hours (to put the players in quarantine), but they came in full match,” lamented Brazilian coach Tite, in the midst of the confusion.
“We’ve been here for three days, why haven’t they come before?” Added Messi.
According to several Brazilian media, the agents wanted to intervene just before the meeting, shortly after the Argentines arrived at the stadium, but the latter would have locked themselves in the locker room until the moment of kick-off.
Annvisa also assured that it had held a meeting on Saturday with representatives of the South American Confederation (Conmebol), the Brazilian Confederation (CBF) and the Argentine Federation (Afa) to inform them of the need to place the four Argentines from the Premier League in quarantine.
“The presence on the field of players who have violated Brazilian laws and health standards, by providing false information to the authorities, motivated this intervention”, justified Anvisa in a statement.
Green carpet ?
The interim president of the CBF, Ednaldo Rodrigues, gave another version to TV Globo: “Before the start of the match, the supervisor told us that they could play, but afterwards, for some unknown reason, they changed. opinion.”
The Argentines finally returned to Buenos Aires overnight and the ball is now in Fifa’s court.
“The official reports will be analyzed by the disciplinary bodies, which will take a decision in due course,” said the organization that governs world football in a statement.
In this case, the match can be resumed at a later date, but the international calendar is already extremely busy due to many postponements of the qualifying matches for the World Cup-2022 due to the pandemic.
To get around this situation, Fifa could give the victory to one of the two teams on the green carpet (3-0), which augurs well for heated debates on the responsibilities of each side in the Sunday masquerade.
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