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In light of deteriorating events in the past two weeks, it should come as no surprise that the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has formally requested Palestine to choose an alternate location in which to host their first World Cup qualifier against Australia on November 21, 2023.
On October 15th, beIN Sports reported that the Palestine Football Association (PFA) and their Algerian counterparts had reached an agreement to host all of Palestine’s games in Algeria. The report was taken as fait accompli although the PFA had not posted about their plans through their official channels.
A day later, the PFA announced that they were formally requested by the AFC to designate a neutral home ground. Palestine may have wanted to host their matches in Algeria but there waas always going to be push back from the continent’s governing body due to the fact that Algeria does not fall under their auspices.
Football Palestine has learned that the request to play in Algeria was rejected for that very reason and they have until October 25th to nominate an alternate home ground.
Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza comes only months after PFA President Jibril Rajoub floated the idea of hosting Lebanon in the coastal territory. Rajoub had said “We can host teams Arab teams in Gaza- they fly to Egypt deal with the Egyptians at Rafah and then are in Gaza without seeing a single occupation soldier.”
Rajoub (70), who is known for his bombastic language, has shown a certain inability to navigate the halls of power in times of crisis. An AFC ran by a Bahraini and heavily influenced by the economic might of Qatar and Saudi Arabia should have been pliable enough.
Worse still, the AFC, has yet to put out a statement in solidarity for the lives lost in Palestine as a result of the war.
It remains to be seen where Palestine end up playing their qualifier against Australia but the leading candidate would be Jordan who hosted Palestine’s 2018 World Cup qualifiers against Saudi Arabia and Malaysia in 2015. Qatar with its expansive facilities also remains an option.
The tentative plan for Palestine’s national team is to get their coaching staff and domestic based players out of the country as soon as possible in order to start preparing for the start of World Cup qualification and the Asian Cup Finals.
