Manama: The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is planning to submit a formal protest to the international football federation (Fifa) after the governing body of world football replaced the name of the Arabian Gulf on its official website with “Persian Gulf".
“The six GCC member countries — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE will seek a rectification of the name,” sources told Saudi daily Okaz. “The GCC countries have contacted members of the Asian Football Federation executive bureau to assess the situation that they see as a nonsensical move by Fifa,” the sources said.
The UAE football head will send a protest note to Fifa for changing the name on its website and in its official correspondence, the sources added.
“There have been contacts with Saudi Arabia and other GCC football federations in order to coordinate our positions and adopt a strong stance,” Yousuf Al Serkal, the president of the UAE football federation, said. “We need to see matters back the way they were before this change. Politics should not be involved in sports. We do not wish to see matters off track because we are involved in sports and serve our young people as they fulfil their aspirations,” he said, quoted by Okaz.
According to the daily, Fifa did not alert any of the six GCC federations about its intention to change the name and the move was felt as a shock.
“The Saudi federation will address the international football body to explain these errors,” Al Zahrani, the supervisor of the Saudi federation website, said. “The federation will take the appropriate action following the clarifications by Fifa. There will be official measures in case this attitude that targets our Gulf identity is not rectified,” he said, quoted by Okaz on Tuesday.
The misnaming should be rectified promptly so that it is used in continental and international competitions, he added.
Iran and the GCC countries have often been at odds over the name of the waterway that separates them.
Tehran has vehemently insisted on calling it the “Persian Gulf” and has taken action against publications referring to it by the correct name.
The Arabian Gulf lies to the east of Arab countries and west of Iran.
The Gulf has an area of 233,100 square kilometres and extends 970 kilometres from the Shatt Al Arab delta to the Strait of Hormuz, which links it with the Sea of Oman.
In 2009, the Saudi-based Islamic Solidarity Games Federation cancelled the Islamic Solidarity Games planned to be held in Tehran after Iran put ‘Persian Gulf’ on the logo.
The Islamic Solidarity Games, meant to strengthen unity among the 57 member states, were originally scheduled for October 2009, but were postponed in an attempt to reach a compromise.
In May 2010, Iran shut down Egypt’s stall at Tehran’s international book fair for selling a book using the Arabian Gulf name.
“Police on patrol disguised as visitors stumbled upon a book entitled ‘Arabian Gulf Encyclopedia’, offered in the Egyptian pavilion at the Tehran International Book Fair,” Tehran Police Chief Hossein Sajedinia said, quoted by the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA). “Consequently, the pavilion was shut down and police forces recovered the distributed copies of the book with the help of the book fair officials and judicial authorities,” he said.
Iranian media claimed that the book “promoted the false, misleading and recently-concocted name of Arabian Gulf,” and that the “correct, research-verified and historically documented name for the body of water is the Persian Gulf.”
In August 2010, the mayor of Shiraz in southwestern Iran called for action against Bahrain’s national carrier Gulf Air for not using the “Persian” Gulf name.
Hossein Qasimi said that Iranian passengers who board Gulf Air planes in Shiraz were upset that the airline did not refer to the Gulf as “Persian Gulf”.
