UAE football team withdraws from cup before facing Qatar

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has officially rejected the UAE’s recent request to move its under-16s football team from the group in which it was placed with Qatar for the Asian Champions League qualifiers.

Following the rejection, the team was not present at the group’s qualifying match against Bangladesh on Wednesday. The UAE team’s group also included Yemen and Bangladesh.

Sharjah Sports TV quoted the AFC as saying that “according to the competition regulations, any member association that does not report for a match shall be considered to have withdrawn from the competition after its commencement”.

The official spokesman of the UAE Football Association, Hassan Al-Jasmi, slammed the AFC’s decision warning that “the issue will be submitted to the International Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne” if the AFC did not respect the association’s rights.

The UAE has been part of a quartet of states boycotting Qatar since 5 June, when Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE severed diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing the Gulf state of supporting terrorism. Qatar denies the accusations.

Read: Timeline of the Arab rift with Qatar