ORLANDO, Florida– A Jamaican player has tested positive for COVID-19 at the ongoing CONCACAF Gold Cup, the country’s governing body has confirmed.
Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz are playing their Group C games at Exploria Stadium in Orlando.While not identifying the player, the Jamaican Football Federation said Thursday said standard protocols were now being followed to deal with the matter.
“A Reggae Boy has tested positive for Covid-19. All measures including isolation [are] being executed,” the JFF said on its official Twitter account.
“Speedy recovery!”
The Reggae Boyz are competing in Group C of the continental showpiece at Exploria Stadium here, and opened their campaign with a 2-0 win over Suriname on Monday.
They are scheduled to face Guadeloupe in their second outing on Friday but there has been no indication yet from tournament organizers if the fixture will be affected.
Already, Dutch Caribbean side Curaçao were ruled out of the competition after returning “a significant number” of positive COVID-19 cases among staff and players in testing prior to the start of the group stage.
With several players who were close contacts of the positive cases required to isolate, CONCACAF said the decision to pull Curaçao from the tournament was made in the best interest of “health and safety”.
Guatemala replaced Curaçao in the competition.
Jamaica is the highest ranked Caribbean side in FIFA’s rankings at 45th.
