Afghanistan players boycott World Cup qualifier

Players from the Afghanistan males’s workforce are boycotting their World Cup qualifying match towards Qatar over their therapy by the soccer federation.

A considerable quantity, 18 players, have reportedly refused to play within the match, resulting from happen in Qatar on 16 November.

Three footballers who play abroad despatched a letter final month to the Asian Football Confederation and Fifa detailing complaints and allegations of significant corruption by the Afghanistan Football Federation, the Guardian has reported.

“The last straw came at the last camp when a big group of us decided that we’d had enough – 18 players got together and said: ‘If we’re going to move forward, we have to put a stop to this,’” Noor Husin, who performs within the National League for Southend United, advised the Guardian.

“We really want change. We want to help domestic players because the money they are getting from Fifa is not being used in the right way.

“We have the worst flights possible and we have to stay in substandard hotels.

“We’ve come together as a group because we want football in Afghanistan to move forward and we believe that it’s not going to move forward with the people that are in charge at the moment.”

Faysal Shayesteh, who’s a former captain and in addition signed the letter, mentioned: “Every year our federation gets financial support from Fifa and from the AFC.

“We want to show a positive Afghanistan to the world so we are asking Fifa to stop supporting our federation financially because the money is going into the pockets of a gang who is ruling football in the country.”

The federation’s secretary Behram Siddiqui has denied the allegations. While players have argued that the AFF government committee stored half of the bonus that ought to have gone to the squad for reaching the subsequent stage of the World Cup qualifying amongst themselves, and that they’ve been holding on to cash from aircraft tickets of players travelling to video games.

A Fifa spokesperson mentioned: “Fifa was informed of these allegations very recently and is currently looking into the matter.”