By IANS/RIA Novosti,
Kiev : An outbreak of illness that laid low ten members of Ukraine’s Euro 2012 squad was probably caused by food poisoning from a poor-quality salad, team doctor Leonid Mironov said Thursday.
As a result of the outbreak, several players including ex-Chelsea striker Andriy Shevchenko and Bayern Munich midfielder Anatoly Tymoshchuk were ruled out of Ukraine’s friendly with Turkey on Tuesday, which the Euro 2012 co-hosts lost 0-2.
Coach Oleg Blokhin claimed that the poisoning could have been the result of “sabotage” by unspecified enemies of the team, in comments on Ukrainian TV on Wednesday.
The explanation is rather more ordinary, Mironov said.
“Upon arrival in Germany at a local hotel, they fed us poor-quality food. Probably, we think, consuming one of the salads led to negative consequences,” he said on the Ukraine 2012 website.
Officials are now investigating how the toxic salad escaped Ukraine’s pair of food tasters, Mironov said.
“The idea is that they test all the food. They set off for the hotel a bit earlier than the team and were supposed to check everything. Now we’ll investigate, find the reasons for what happened.”
Mironov said that some players could take “one or two days” more to recover, depending on how seriously they were affected.
Ukraine plays its first game of the tournament against Sweden on Monday, by which time the players should be back to full fitness.
The Sweden game will be followed by a match against France on June 15, before Ukraine take on England on June 19.