Tag: the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS)

Iraq football federation to protest FIFA’s decision.

The Iraqi Football Federation intends to sue the world football governing body FIFA for denying it hosting its matches at home citing security reasons.

FIFA’s decision to deprive the country of hosting the World Cup Qatar 2022 qualifiers. In a letter to the Iraqi Football Federation yesterday, FIFA stated that the country could not host its World Cup qualifiers due to its security situation, and therefore should nominate a third country to host the home matches. FIFA’s decision has been met with objections from the Iraqi Football Federation, to the extent that they intend to sue the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

The Iraqi website also wrote that in the second step, the Iraqi Football Federation intends to ask FIFA and the AFC to hold a return match between Iran and Iraq at the Basra Stadium, which is scheduled to take place in Iraq. However, the Iraqi Sports website wrote that the federation has introduced Qatar as its host to FIFA for the first time, but will try to persuade FIFA to reverse this decision.

The chances of Iraq hosting its home games are slim as the CAS hearing normally takes a long time and chances are that the qualifiers will be over by the time a ruling is issued.

Iraq is in Group A of the World Cup Qatar 2022 third-round qualifiers along with Iran, Korea Rep., Syria, Lebanon, and UAE

CAS acknowledges FFIRI petition.

The Iranian Football Federation FFIRI has issued a statement published on its website regarding the progress of its complaints against AFC in the Court of Arbitration for Sport CAS. The text of the statement is hereunder:

1- The judges of CAS acknowledge the receipt of an Official letter from FFIRI on Tuesday 13th April 2021, in form of a petition against AFC and request for reversal of its decision to award the hosting of World Cup Qualifier matches to a competitor (Bahrain). The issue has been assigned to a panel of experts.

2- About the letter received from the plaintiff (FFIRI) the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has accepted the complaint and its contents and consequently allowed the Asian Football Confederation 10 days to respond to the complaint.

3- CAS, recognizing the importance and the urgency of the matter has assigned 3-judge panel to pursue the complaint and review the situations and conditions for a final ruling.

The FFIRI has reached the Court of Arbitration for Sport CAS to file a case against the Asian football ruling body in protest to the award hosting rights for the centralized preliminary rounds of World Cup qualifiers to Bahrain. AFC has claimed that the selection was done fairly based on several factors that the AFC has refused to disclose to the media!

AFC has refused to answer queries by World Media and has not been transparent on this selection mechanism.

Iran has already lost away games to Iraq and Bahrain, so centralizing in Bahrain gives the Bahrainis an unfair advantage while FIFA and AFC spread the sermon of “Fair Play” worldwide. At this stage of World Cup 2022 qualifying, only group winners are guaranteed to go through to the final group qualifying, with the other five slots going to the best-placed group runners-up.

The Iranians claim that they should be hosting the group and that the AFC made the decision to go to Bahrain under pressure from AFC president, Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, who is from Bahrain. AFC claims that the decision to go to Bahrain was made on the hosting criteria the AFC has had for competitions during the pandemic. At the top of that list is whether the traveling players and staff will be safe.  Facts say otherwise, See the table below

Insiders claim that Dato’ Windsor John, Secretary-General was the force behind this controversial award to satisfy his boss, Shaikh Salman. The Bahraini AFC President has cleverly stayed away from the issue, but ultimately, he is accountable and culpable.

This is the first time in the history of the World Cup since 1930, that a team plays both it is away and home matches at the opponent’s country.

COVID19 Worldwide statistics.

If the AFC decision claims that Bahrain is safer (…) in terms of COVOD19, then this table refutes that claim. Bahrain is a small island with the sixth highest population density in the world (2159 per sq/km compared to 59 per sq/km for Iran). It has a ratio of 90,877 COVID19 cases per 1 million population. Iran on the other hand has less than half of that figure, nearly a third with 25,271. There are other statistical and legal arguments that do not put Bahrain ahead of Iran in terms of health hazards and safety in the pandemic.

# Country, Total Cases Total Deaths Total Recovered Tot Cases per 1M pop Deaths/ 1M pop Total Tests Tests/
1M pop		 Population
1 USA 32,096,070 577,399 24,640,110 96,523 1,736 422,359,302 1,270,172 332,521,463
2 India 14,065,622 173,087 12,423,992 10,115 124 260,618,866 187,414 1,390,605,073
3 Brazil 13,601,566 358,718 12,074,798 63,636 1,678 28,600,000 133,807 213,741,192
4 France 5,149,834 99,777 315,152 78,760 1,526 70,521,002 1,078,522 65,386,679
5 Russia 4,666,209 104,000 4,291,223 31,964 712 124,400,000 852,151 145,983,521
6 UK 4,378,305 127,161 4,000,777 64,231 1,865 138,606,631 2,033,395 68,165,116
7 Turkey 4,025,557 34,734 3,480,146 47,333 408 42,509,905 499,835 85,047,882
15 Iran 2,143,794 65,359 1,739,002 25,271 770 13,964,570 164,615 84,831,939
78 Bahrain 158,789 566 147,162 90,877 324 3,815,826 2,183,841 1,747,300