AFP.— Players, officials, and fans observed moments of silence before Friday’s World Cup matches to honor the victims of the deadly earthquakes that struck Venezuela earlier this week.
Both the France–Norway and Senegal–Iraq matches—the first two of six games on Friday’s World Cup schedule—began with the tribute. Stadium announcers in Foxborough, near Boston, and Toronto explained that the ceremony honored those who lost their lives in the disaster.
French team officials initially said the moment of silence honored the mother of head coach Didier Deschamps, who recently passed away. Minutes later, however, they corrected that information.
Authorities raised the provisional death toll from Venezuela’s magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes to 920 confirmed fatalities on Friday.
