UAE pull out team under pressure

Dubai: The UAE Football Association (FA) bowed to pressure from the local clubs and decided to pull out their squad from the West Asian Games.

The decision proved to be prudent and the the FA can now concentrate on the domestic league which has seen many interruptions over the past three months.

The club officials and coaches have protested about the constant postponement of league games arguing that it affects the players. The clubs claimed that the West Asian Games were not important since most countries tend to field their youth and Olympic teams.

The league kicked off on August 31 and only three stages have been played in eight months so far. The second stage saw a three week stoppage following the national teams commitments.

The second stoppage was for one month (from October 21 to November 20) due to the Eid holidays and the national teams preparations for the friendly game against world champions Brazil and their assignment to Syria.

The third stoppage occurred from November 25, after the end of the eighth stage. It was set to continue till the the third week of December till the FA took the decision to withdraw from the West Asian Games.

The ninth stage of the league will now resume tomorrow. However, more stoppages are on the cards due to the national team's preparations for the Asian Cup qualifiers and other warm-up games.

The National Olympic Committee were, however, taken aback at the FA's decision to pull out the football squad from the West Asian Games.

Ahmad Al Fardan, the NOC's second vice-president and the head of the UAE delegation to Doha said that the national team could have achieved better results if they had taken part despite other countries sending their youth and Olympic teams.

There were suggestions that the under-20 team, who qualified for the final qualifiers of the Asian competition, could also have been fielded. But Al Fardan argued against it saying that the NOC would not accept the youth team's participation in the Games.