TEHRAN – Persepolis football team’s members will be forced into 14 days of hotel quarantine after returning from India.

The Iranian team are in Goa, India at the moment for the 2021 AFC Champions League.

Iran on Saturday announced the halt of all flights to and from India until further notice over a COVID-19 variant to avert its spread in the already-stricken country.

A charter flight will bring back Persepolis home but the team’s members will go to Azadi Football Academy Hotel.

Providing the latest statistics on the coronavirus infection, Health Ministry’s spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said on Wednesday that the total number of people tested positive for COVID-19 in the country has surpassed 2,459,900 after the detection of 21,713 new cases since yesterday.

The pandemic has claimed 434 lives over the past 24 hours, while the overall coronavirus death toll in Iran stands at 70,966, she added.

The number of people infected with COVID-19 across the world has surpassed 149 million and the death toll has exceeded 3.15 million.