Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy has tested positive to COVID 19 at the African Cup of Nations in Cameroon.
The Senegal Football Federation said Mendy, was among a new group of Senegal players namely captain Kalidou Koulibaly and striker Famara Diedhiou who returned positive results on Saturday in mandatory testing for the Senegal squad 48 hours ahead of its opening game of the African Cup against Zimbabwe.
All three will be ruled out of Monday’s game unless subsequent testing proves they were false positives.
Senegal, which is one of the title favorites at the African Cup, already had three other players and six members of the team management test positive for the virus before the squad departed Dakar for Cameroon on Wednesday.
Mendy’s positive test raised concerns for Senegal’s star forward Sadio Mane, who flew to Dakar from Britain with Mendy on a chartered jet. Photographs showed the pair sitting close together on the flight without masks.