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Elims CAN 2021-Benin-Sierra Leone: after the postponement of the match
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Elims CAN 2021-Benin-Sierra Leone: after the postponement of the match, Michel Dussuyer finally reacts


Benin's coach Michel Dussuyer attends a press conference on the eve of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) quarter final football match between Benin and Senegal at the 30 June stadium in Cairo on July 9, 2019 (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP)

Scheduled for Tuesday in Freetown as part of the CAN 2021 qualifiers, the match between Sierra Leone and Benin could not take place.
Blame it on irregularities in the performance and presentation of visitors' Covid-19 tests (the 5 positives were simply written on a sheet, without any medical document attesting to the results, Editor's note).

In an exclusive interview with Football365 Africa, Ecureuils coach Michel Dussuyer returned to these deplorable events which further degrade the image of African football.

Michel, you and your players fell into a trap on Tuesday in Sierra Leone.
Let's resume things when you leave for Freetown.
Was everyone negative then?

Yes.
We retested the whole delegation on Saturday night, after the game against Nigeria, in order to have the results on Sunday, the day of the trip.
We had no positive cases among the 80 people who were to take a seat on this charter flight.
We arrived around 5 pm Sunday, on D-2 of the game.

When you arrived, did everything seem normal to you?

Not really.
We were not tested on arrival, which is quite astonishing in this context of a pandemic.
We went straight to the hotel.
Our installation went smoothly.
But already, I thought it was weird that we didn't have a test at the airport.

When were the Covid tests carried out?

Monday morning.
A medical team came to the hotel at 11 a.m.
They asked us to provide paperwork, fill out forms, all for each player.
It took a long time.
We must have started doing the tests at 12:30 or 1 p.m.!
We then go to practice and reconnoitre the terrain.
Everything is going normally.

Things get tough on match day ...

Yes

How do you vote?

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