Barcelona’s Champions League clash with Dynamo Kiev on Wednesday night is at serious threat of being called off due to a breakout of coronavirus in the Ukrainian team’s squad.
Only 13 first-team players travelled to Spain on Monday, the minimum number established by UEFA’s health protocols.
An additional six from the youth team have made the journey, but if only one more player from List A tests positive than the match will be postponed.
Six players in total from the Ukrainian club have been infected, with more testing set to take place on Tuesday morning.
The six players last trained with the Dynamo squad on Sunday, according to reliable sources.
Though the players who have travelled tested negative, they could still manifest the disease at a later stage, increasing the risk that they could infect Barcelona players.
If the game has to be rescheduled, then a new date will have to be found before the cut-off point of January 28, which may prove difficult due to the heavily congested calendar.
Dynamo announced that the six covid-19 casualties are Nikolai Shaparenko, Alexandr Karavaev, Gueorgui Tsitaishvili, Denis Garmash, Mikkel Duelund and Tudor Baluta.
In addition, assistant coach Emil Karas and four other members of the backroom staff tested positive.
Goalkeepers Denys Boyko and Heorhiy Bushchan and defender Vitaliy Mykolenko also suffered injuries against Dnipro at the weekend, leaving the Ukrainian outfit short even further.
Coach Mircea Lucescu has been forced to call-up two goalkeepers from his reserves and another from the youth team, with the average age of the squad travelling out dropped to just 22.37 years.
They are scheduled to train on the pitch at the Nou Camp on Tuesday night.
Dynamo sit third in Champions League Group G, having lost their first game to Juventus before drawing with Hungarian outfit Ferencvaros.
Barcelona sit top with two wins from two, including an impressive 2-0 victory at Juve last week.