Football Teams in Jeopardy for Playing in Hard Hit Bahrain
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification has brought Group C teams together in Bahrain, where the coronavirus pandemic continues to cause havoc in the region.
The Persian Gulf island nation is battling a sharp resurgence of COVID-19 but the Asian Football Confederation has not changed the venue, while the Confederation moved the Group A matches from the Chinese city of Suzhou to Dubai. The decision was made due to the mounting challenges faced by several participating teams in traveling to China.
Now, four teams, namely Iran, Cambodia, Hong Kong and Iraq have traveled to the hard hit country but the AFC doesn’t care about the situation.
It seems the AFC is determined to give Bahrain the edge over their rivals in the group.
According to the World Health Organization, the number of daily COVID-19 cases in Bahrain has hit 1,936, alongside 3,005 recoveries and 22 fatalities.
When the country experienced the daily records of 700 positive cases in September 2020, Bahrain Football Association suspended domestic league matches in the middle of week 16 for fifteen days.
How can FIFA allow the international players to compete in the region while Bahrain has gone into another lockdown?
Will FIFA continue to watch in silence and allow its own “Return to Football” guidelines be disrespected by the Asian Football Confederation in a competition that is partly overseen by FIFA itself?
