Coronavirus: Four Danish footballers in quarantine as Premier League bans pre-match handshakes
Denmark football club Brondby have quarantined 13 people including a player and assistant coach after ex-Denmark international Thomas Kahlenberg tested positive for coronavirus.
Kahlenberg contracted the virus in Amsterdam last weekend according to Brondby director of communications Christian Schultz, before attending the club’s match with Lyngby on Sunday.
Brondby defender Joel Kabongo joins assistant coach Martin Retov in quarantine, while Lyngby also have three players isolated: Martin Ornskov, Kasper Jorgensen and Patrick da Silva.
The players met with Kahlenberg after the match and “shook hands”, Shultz told BBC.
Kabongo had been a former team-mate of the Dane.
Nine other members of Brondby’s staff, including the data analyst, psychologist and chief executive Ole Palma, have all had to be placed into quarantine.
Schultz said Kahlenberg was “very, very sorry for the commotion he’s caused” but was in “good spirits”.
He added that former Liverpool midfielder and now Ajax assistant coach Christian Poulsen is in isolation after being in contact with Kahlenberg in Amsterdam.
It comes as the Premier League have banned players and match officials from shaking hands from this weekend’s fixtures onwards.
In a statement last night, the Premier League said the “fair-play handshake will not take place between players and match officials from this weekend until further notice based on medical advice.”
It said: “On entering the field of play, the two teams will continue to line up, accompanied by the Premier League music, then players from the home team will walk past their opposition without shaking their hands.”