Belgrade (AFP)

Six players from the Belgrade Red Star have tested positive for coronavirus, the defending champion from Serbia, a country hit by an upsurge in the pandemic, said on Saturday.

"These players will not participate in the first phase of the preparation camp and will be in solitary confinement for the next two weeks," the football club said in a statement.

"The Red Star undertakes all the necessary protective measures," the source added.

On June 22, the club had already announced that five players were positive, two days after its players celebrated their title in front of 18,000 spectators.

Tested, the other players of the first team are negative for the virus.

After containing a first wave of the epidemic at the cost of very strict measures, the Serbian authorities proceeded to a rapid deconfinement, with in particular mass sporting events.

Friday, with 18 deaths, this country of 7 million inhabitants, had its deadliest day since the start of the pandemic.

Football is not the only sport in Serbia reached by Covid-19.

On June 22, the Serbian Basketball Federation canceled a training camp for the national team after two players tested positive.

The next day, the world tennis N.1 Novak Djokovic announced to be positive for the coronavirus, contracted on the sidelines of the charity tournament he organized in the Balkans.

Three players who participated in the Adria Tour, which started in mid-June in Belgrade, also announced to be positive at Covid-19: the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov (19th world), the Croatian Borna Coric (33th) and the Serbian Viktor Troicki (184th).

Subsequently, the Croatian Goran Ivanisevic, director of one of the stages of the Adria Tour and one of Djokovic's coaches, also announced that he had tested positive.

The pandemic has infected nearly 18,000 people and officially killed 370 people in Serbia.

But the country has been plagued since this week by demonstrations interspersed with violence, protesters criticizing the government for the inconsistency in its management of the pandemic and accusing it of deliberately minimizing its magnitude.

- A club in Albania affected -

Another sign of the resurgence of the pandemic in this region, another club in the Balkans, Partizani, also announced that five of its players had tested positive, who did not play in the derby against the championship leader. Albania, KF Tirana (1-1), held on Friday.

"The players are feeling well and are in strict quarantine, in constant contact with the medical team," a spokesman for the club told AFP.

Since the start of the pandemic, in Albania 3,371 people have tested positive, of which 89 have died. With 90 new cases on Friday, Albania experienced its highest daily increase.

© 2020 AFP