KEIR RADNEDGE REPORTING —- The United Arab Emirates retreated from an embarrassing threat to undermine its own staging of the Asian Cup when it reversed a ban on entry to senior Qatari official Saoud al-Mohannadi.
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Al-Mohannadi is a vice-president of not only the Qatar Football Association which will host the 2022 World Cup but also of the Asian Football Confederation. He chairs the AFC organising committee of the Asian Cup which the UAE itself is hosting.

He sent a letter of protest to Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khelaifi – president of the AFC and a vice-president of world federation FIFA – and the complaint was passed on to the UAE authorities who relented, blaming an administrative error.

Saoud Al-Mohannadi . . . allowed in

However five Qatari journalists were reportedly barred from entering the UAE.

Coincidentally – or not – Al-Mohannadi and Mohamed Khalfan Matar Saeed Alromaithi from the UAE are challenging Sheikh Salman for the AFC presidency at an election congress in April.

Al-Mohannadi was thus able to chair an eve-of-finals meeting of the organising committee and assure his colleagues that everything was ready and in place.

He said: “This competition will live up to the slogan of ‘Bringing Asia Together’ and with a competition of this stature, we are proud to have extended the AFC’s ‘It’s My Game’ campaign with the LOC to inspire women and girls across the UAE to embrace different roles in football.

“I am pleased to inform you the AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019 will introduce the Video Assistant Referee System (VAR) in seven matches starting from the quarter-finals. This landmark decision is a first for the AFC Asian Cup as we embrace technology to benefit the game.”

The latest confrontation between sport and politics came only one day after a conference in Dubai at which FIFA president Gianni Infantino had held open the possibility of expanding the 2022 World Cup finals from 36 to 48 teams and thus sharing matches around the Gulf.

The Qatari national team are one of the Asian Cup finalists but the squad have yet to fly to the UAE.

Qatar has insisted that any decision on expansion rested with FIFA which is undertaking a feasibility study into the issue with a decision due from its governing council in March.

For the past two years Qatar has been subject to a political and economic boycott by a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and supported by the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt.

Saudi sports officials have suffered several setbacks in the past months over politically-motivated attempts to meddle in the governance of Asian and world football.

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