Singapore: Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, has been stripped of the right to host its first major football event amid opposition to the participation of Israel.
The football-mad nation was scheduled to stage the men’s Under-20 FIFA World Cup from May 20 to June 11 and hoped the 24-team tournament would begin to repair its battered reputation after last year’s stadium tragedy in East Java.
Controversy over the qualification of Israel, however, has resulted in the event being removed from the South-East Asia’s largest nation by the game’s world governing body FIFA, which indicated it may also consider sanctions against the Football Association of Indonesia (PSSI).
“FIFA has decided, due to the current circumstances, to remove Indonesia as the host of the FIFA U-20 World Cup 2023,” FIFA said in a statement.
“A new host will be announced as soon as possible, with the dates of the tournament currently remaining unchanged. Potential sanctions against the PSSI may also be decided at a later stage.”
Indonesia was awarded the hosting rights in 2019 well before it was known which national teams would make it through the qualifying stages.
But the eventual presence in the draw of Israel – with which it has no formal diplomatic ties – threw a spanner in the works for a government that supports the cause of the Palestinians.
Read the article by Chris Barrett in The Sydney Morning Herald.