Now Team Brazil claim they were robbed

Published Jun 22, 2009

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By AP and Staff Reporters

Brazil have become the second team at the Confederations Cup to claim that they were robbed at their hotel.

Team spokesperson Rodrigo Paiva said "a jacket and some money" disappeared from some of the rooms at the Centurion Lake hotel, outside Pretoria.

Paiva said they think they were burgled when the team went to a safari park on Friday.

The team had contacted authorities about the incident. Brazil was also expected to talk to Fifa about the matter.

Paiva said two rooms were apparently robbed, including that of left back Kleber and a team physiotherapist. They don't think anything was taken from other players and team members.

That burglary came just days after five Egyptian football players said their Joburg hotel rooms were burgled while they were playing Italy on Thursday at Ellis Park.

Meanwhile, police were due to question the Egyptian soccer team today, after it emerged that some players were not "robbed" but might have been taken for a ride by women they invited to their hotel for an impromptu victory party.

Initial investigations suggest that there was no forced entry in any of the rooms at the Joburg hotel. They show that the players may have been the victims of those they invited to join them to celebrate their surprise 1-0 win over Italy.

It was decided to hold off questioning the team yesterday, because of their final Confederations Cup group match against the US last night, a local organising committee (LOC) source said.

"They (the police) did not want to interrogate the team before the match and then be accused of harassing the players, if they did not perform.

"The long and the short of it is that the police are not convinced of the (robbery) story," the LOC source said.

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