Baghdad – WAA
The Iraqi Football Association expressed its surprise at the unacceptable and unfair decision taken by the West Asian Football Federation to consider the Iraqi youth team as having lost its two matches against the Lebanese and Jordanian teams with scores of (0-3), despite reaching the semi-finals as champion of its first group with four points.
A statement by the Football Association received by the (INA) today, Sunday, stated that “the Iraqi Federation denounces this unfair decision against the youth team and confirms that it reserves its legal right to defend itself before the Asian and International Federations, in addition to possessing evidence that refutes the unjust decision of the West Asian Federation, and that it will publish the official papers that confirm the soundness of its position.”
He added that “the Iraqi youth team delegation requested in the technical meeting of the West Asian Cup Championship currently taking place in Jordan to examine all the ages of the players in the three teams (Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq), and to ensure the integrity of all their identification papers, but it found nothing but a premeditated arbitrary decision that did not give the federation the right to respond guaranteed according to the regulations within a period of (24) hours, and issued the decision before the end of that period.”
He continued, “According to what was decided by the West Asian Football Federation, the Iraqi Football Federation decided to suspend all its activities and participation in all West Asian Federation championships as a result of the policy of this Federation, which has strayed far from the professionalism and principles of sports work that we had hoped the West Asian Federation would adopt.”