Bahrain soccer team urged to play match in Palestine

Manama: The Palestinian ambassador to Bahrain has urged the local sports authorities and the national soccer team to go ahead with a match scheduled for May 28 in Palestine, assuring them that they will not have to deal with Israelis and their passports will not be stamped by Israel.

"Media reports claiming that Bahraini passports will have the Israeli stamps are not true," Ahmad Ramadan said. "The Israelis will have nothing to do with the Bahraini team, particularly that the football match will be held under the auspices of Fifa, the international football federation, and Israel will not take the risk of a standoff with them," he said.

An intense debate over the merit of the soccer match in Palestine has gripped Bahrain, particularly after four players published statements saying that the game was a form of normalisation of ties with the "Zionist entity" and they "did not want to play any role in it."

An anti-Israel society, several columnists and MPs supported them and called upon the Bahraini authorities to dismiss the game or, as a second option, hold it either in "liberated Gaza" or in Manama.

Shocked

However, the Palestinian envoy said that he was "shocked by the inaccurate premises" upon which several people developed their positions against the match.

"We were not pleased with the reports in the local media about the game. Even if we assume there were good intentions in the published statements, we must stress that they are not based on facts surrounding the game," the ambassador said. "We wish people would stop producing subjective and biased analyses based on speculations and not on facts."

For instance, the game will not be held in occupied Jerusalem, but in Al Ram, the ambassador said.

The stadium at Al Ram near Ramallah was inaugurated in October 2008 when Palestine hosted its first international match at home since becoming affiliated to Fifa in 1998. According to the ambassador, soon after the match Al Ram will host an international conference in which several Arab delegations will take part.

"Their visit is not in any way a form of normalisation with the Israelis. There are no Israeli stamps and visitors can witness the suffering and woes of the Palestinians and, at the same time, allow the local population to feel that they are not alone and that they have brothers and sisters who stand by them and support them," he said.