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Singapore football coach fumes after farcical scenes
SINGAPORE (AFP) - Fuming Singapore coach Raddy Avramovic has slammed Palestine as unprofessional after his side was forced to kick-off without an opponent in their World Cup qualifying match here.
In farcical scenes, Singapore had to take the field on Sunday despite Palestine failing to show up. They kicked off in an empty stadium before the match was abandoned by referee Sun Baojie.
FIFA match commissioner Shahir Ahmed of the Maldives was unable to officially call-off the game before then because Palestine had not indicated that they were not coming.
"We had to enact the farcical kick-off without them. It was unprofessional of the Palestine team," Avramovic told the Straits Times.
"They cannot simply pick and choose who they want to play. They had a duty to fulfil this fixture."
It is not the first time the Palestinian side has failed to turn up. They pulled the same stunt last November when they were a no-show for their Asian Cup qualifying match, also against Singapore.
On that occasion they cited travel difficulties in and out of Gaza, but what riled Avramovic this time was that the Palestinians failed to contact either FIFA or the Asian Football Confederation to say they could not make it.
Singapore was awarded the game 3-0 by FIFA, to give them a 7-0 aggregate victory.
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