Iraqi Footballers Seeking Asylum in Australia

By: Martha | November 19th, 2007

WOO HOO! According to news reports last night, three members of the Iraqi football team — in Australia for a qualifying match over the weekend — snuck out of the team hotel and, along with an assistant coach who is also missing, were thought to be seeking asylum in Australia. When the group failed to show up at the airport for the team’s scheduled departure today, the missing assistant called team officials and confirmed the quartet’s intention to seek asylum when their 90-day travel visas expire.

Despite their thrilling success in the Asian Cup just a few months ago, Iraq lost to the Australian U-23 team on Saturday and now need help to qualify for the Olympics; it’s believed the three players, one of whom is Asian Cup hero Ali Abbas, didn’t want to return home for fear of facing repercussions for the loss, and the possible failure to qualify for Beijing. In fact, athletes in Iraq have often been the target of crime even when they’re successful, and three members of the Asian Cup-winning team actually refused to return home even as the entire country was celebrating their victory, saying their feared for the lives. Needless to say, Iraq officials have assured Abbas and his teammates that there will be no problems at home, and they’d really, really like it if the three would rejoin the team, since they have a must-win qualifier against Lebanon later this week.

Iraq, of course, is not the only country where footballers — obvious, well-known holders of wealth among improvised people — are targets of crime. To name but two victims from elsewhere in the world, Milan defender Kakha Kaladze’s brother was kidnapped in Georgia (the country not the state) in 2001 and executed despite the payment of a ransom, and Ricardo Oliveira’s sister was taken from her home in Brazil last year, only to be safely recovered five months later.

Edit: The assistant coach who was quoted as explaining the players’ disappearance from the hotel claims he’s visiting his sister in Sydney, and says he had nothing to do with their disappearance. Curiouser and curiouser.