The Democratic Republic of Congo's national football team, known as the Léopards, has been required by US authorities to maintain a strict isolation bubble for 21 days before entering the United States for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, following a significant escalation of the Ebola outbreak in the country's east.
Andrew Giuliani, the White House's point person for World Cup preparations, announced the measures, stating that the DRC squad must preserve the integrity of their bubble from 22 May in order to arrive in Houston by 11 June. "If there are other people that are going to be coming in, they need to have a separate bubble from that team," Giuliani said, warning that any symptomatic individuals could jeopardise the entire squad's participation in the tournament. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a broader ban on entry to non-Americans who have been in the DRC, Uganda, or South Sudan within the previous 21 days. The World Health Organization (WHO) raised the public health risk from the DRC's Ebola outbreak from "high" to "very high" on Friday, with WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noting the regional risk in Africa as "high", while describing the global risk as "low". The outbreak has so far produced 867 suspected cases and 204 probable deaths, according to the Congolese health ministry.
As a direct consequence, the squad's pre-tournament training camp has been relocated from Kinshasa, the DRC's capital, to Brussels, Belgium, beginning 25 May. The move has sparked widespread disappointment among fans in Kinshasa, who had hoped to see the team in person ahead of their first World Cup appearance in 52 years. "I would have liked there to be a communion with the public for the return of the national team to such an important competition," one supporter told RFI. Others expressed frustration at what they saw as an overgeneralisation by US authorities. "In Kinshasa, we live normally. But when I watch the news, it's as if everyone living in the DRC is automatically infected," said another resident.
Despite the disruption, the Congolese football federation confirmed that preparations will continue as planned. The team will face Denmark in Liège on 3 June and Chile in Cádiz on 9 June in warm-up friendlies, before opening their World Cup campaign against Portugal on 17 June. The Léopards are drawn in Group K alongside Portugal, Colombia, and Uzbekistan. The tournament runs from 11 June to 19 July.
The situation highlights the complex intersection of public health policy and international sport. While US health authorities maintain that the restrictions are necessary given the rapidly evolving outbreak, the episode has fuelled a sense of injustice among Congolese fans and players who feel the country is being treated as uniformly dangerous despite the outbreak being concentrated in one region.