Day -963. WorldCup2018.
When politics gets in the way of football, again. And this one is as murky as they get.
Saudi Arabia and Palestine were due to play their repeatedly postponed, re-scheduled World Cup qualifier this Thursday in the Faisal Husseini stadium in the West Bank. Today the Saudi Arabia Football Federation (SAFF) sent a letter to Fifa saying they were withdrawing from the match because of security and safety concerns for the Saudi Arabian team and delegation in the West Bank.
The meeting of these two teams has been the subject of many negotiations. The first match was supposed to be played in the West Bank but the two federations agreed to reverse the order and played the first one in Saudi Arabia. Before the return match in Palestine, the Saudis demanded that it be played in a neutral territory, citing undefined “exceptional circumstances.”
The Palestinian Federation refused to accept: "Depriving Palestine of the right to play at home is a dangerous precedent and impossible to accept under any conditions." Fair point.
The Saudis had invoked a "case of force majeure" in their argument for postponement to Fifa. The match scheduled for October 13th was indeed postponed and Fifa's "Bureau for the FIFA World Cup qualifiers" decided that it would be played this Thursday.
What is the SAFF's argument for withdrawal from the match? What are the “exceptional circumstances”? It doesn't take a genius in international relations and world politics to figure out that the SAFF's decisions are not purely football based and, indeed, not just coming from the SAFF.
The relationship between Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians is, yes, complicated. Saudi Arabia were, in the past, backers of Hamas, have been involved in efforts to unite Hamas and Fatah, have tried to encourage the disarmament of Hamas more recently and because of this have been accused by the supporters of Hamas of colluding with Israel and the US.
On the other hand, Saudi Arabia has no diplomatic relations with Israel. The irony is that many Arab teams refuse to play in the West Bank, as they say it normalizes Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories. In order to reach the stadium the Saudi team would have had to pass through an Israeli border.
Put very simply, Palestinian football is suffering even at the hands of it's Arab neighbours because in order to play there they are seen to be recognizing Israel's rights to the occupied territories. "Simply" is an understatement here as we know it is anything but.
Of course with any football related political story there is also a football side to it. Saudi Arabia have won all four of their matches so far and are comfortably ahead of the second placed team, the UAE. Fifa will, in all probability, award Palestine a 3-0 win and fine the SAFF (not they are probably too worried about that). It can be argued that the SAFF did some calculations and realized they could absorb this loss, with the substantial lead they already have.
According to The National newspaper in the UAE, there is also an outside chance that Fifa could disqualify Saudi Arabia from qualifying "if they are not satisfied with the SAFF’s reasoning for not playing the match." With the possibility of a further, bigger political storm erupting, which Fifa would not want to get into (and this without going into Fifa's current interest in the Middle East and vice versa) the chances of this happening are very slim. As a side note it is interesting that Fifa have no mention of this SAFF withdrawal on their website today, after publishing all the updates on the postponements and re-scheduling details.
But what The National newspaper is more excited about is how this "defeat" for Saudi Arabia has given the UAE a better chance of catching the group leaders. Because, like any football supporters in any country all you want is for your team, your country, to win and get to the World Cup and to let the politicians sort everything else out.
When politics gets in the way of football, again. And this one is as murky as they get.
Saudi Arabia and Palestine were due to play their repeatedly postponed, re-scheduled World Cup qualifier this Thursday in the Faisal Husseini stadium in the West Bank. Today the Saudi Arabia Football Federation (SAFF) sent a letter to Fifa saying they were withdrawing from the match because of security and safety concerns for the Saudi Arabian team and delegation in the West Bank.
The meeting of these two teams has been the subject of many negotiations. The first match was supposed to be played in the West Bank but the two federations agreed to reverse the order and played the first one in Saudi Arabia. Before the return match in Palestine, the Saudis demanded that it be played in a neutral territory, citing undefined “exceptional circumstances.”
The Palestinian Federation refused to accept: "Depriving Palestine of the right to play at home is a dangerous precedent and impossible to accept under any conditions." Fair point.
The Saudis had invoked a "case of force majeure" in their argument for postponement to Fifa. The match scheduled for October 13th was indeed postponed and Fifa's "Bureau for the FIFA World Cup qualifiers" decided that it would be played this Thursday.
What is the SAFF's argument for withdrawal from the match? What are the “exceptional circumstances”? It doesn't take a genius in international relations and world politics to figure out that the SAFF's decisions are not purely football based and, indeed, not just coming from the SAFF.
The relationship between Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians is, yes, complicated. Saudi Arabia were, in the past, backers of Hamas, have been involved in efforts to unite Hamas and Fatah, have tried to encourage the disarmament of Hamas more recently and because of this have been accused by the supporters of Hamas of colluding with Israel and the US.
On the other hand, Saudi Arabia has no diplomatic relations with Israel. The irony is that many Arab teams refuse to play in the West Bank, as they say it normalizes Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories. In order to reach the stadium the Saudi team would have had to pass through an Israeli border.
Put very simply, Palestinian football is suffering even at the hands of it's Arab neighbours because in order to play there they are seen to be recognizing Israel's rights to the occupied territories. "Simply" is an understatement here as we know it is anything but.
Of course with any football related political story there is also a football side to it. Saudi Arabia have won all four of their matches so far and are comfortably ahead of the second placed team, the UAE. Fifa will, in all probability, award Palestine a 3-0 win and fine the SAFF (not they are probably too worried about that). It can be argued that the SAFF did some calculations and realized they could absorb this loss, with the substantial lead they already have.
According to The National newspaper in the UAE, there is also an outside chance that Fifa could disqualify Saudi Arabia from qualifying "if they are not satisfied with the SAFF’s reasoning for not playing the match." With the possibility of a further, bigger political storm erupting, which Fifa would not want to get into (and this without going into Fifa's current interest in the Middle East and vice versa) the chances of this happening are very slim. As a side note it is interesting that Fifa have no mention of this SAFF withdrawal on their website today, after publishing all the updates on the postponements and re-scheduling details.
But what The National newspaper is more excited about is how this "defeat" for Saudi Arabia has given the UAE a better chance of catching the group leaders. Because, like any football supporters in any country all you want is for your team, your country, to win and get to the World Cup and to let the politicians sort everything else out.
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