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Romelu Lukaku made an astonishing revelation, claiming “23 out of 25 Inter players were ill with a cough and fever” in January, but they weren’t tested for COVID-19.
So far, the Nerazzurri have not had any confirmed positive cases, despite being in Lombardy, the epicentre of the pandemic in Italy.
Now Lukaku suggests there were some very suspicious situations going on behind the scenes during his Instagram Live conversation with Kat Kerkhofs, who is a Belgian TV presenter and wife of Napoli striker Dries Mertens.
“We had a week off in December, we returned to work and I swear that 23 out of 25 players were ill. I am not kidding. We played against Radja Nainggolan’s Cagliari and after about 25 minutes, one of our defenders had to leave the pitch. He could not continue and almost fainted.”
The player he is referring to is Milan Skriniar, who went off 17 minutes into that match on January 26, officially because he felt dizzy and hadn’t quite recovered from flu.
The first official case of coronavirus in Italy was not until February 21, so they were not tested.
“Everyone was coughing and had a fever. When I was warming up, I felt a lot hotter than usual. I hadn’t suffered from a fever in years,” continued Lukaku.
“After the game there was a planned dinner with guests from Puma, but I thanked them and went straight to bed. We never did the COVID-19 tests at that moment, so we’ll never know for sure.”
They probably can, because the protocol for Serie A players returning to training includes blood tests to check for antibodies.
If the antibodies are present, it means they had the virus at some point and made a full recovery.
Meanwhile, Lukaku also described the close-knit community that the Inter players have built up.
“We’ve got seven players who all live in the same street. The difference with England is enormous, as there we’d go out to dinner about once every four months, whereas here it’s every four weeks.”
Many Italian clubs have regular team dinners where they take turns paying the bill.
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