“Israel is in our group, we have to play, unfortunately there is a war in place and this hurts.” Gennaro GattusoCT of the national team, does not escape, on the first day of withdrawal of the Azzurri in view of the qualifying matches to the World Cup, to the questions about the question that has long been open: play or not with Israel.
Gattuso’s statements
“I am a man of peace, I hope that peace is there all over the world, it hurts the heart to see civilians and children who leave life; But after we do another jobPresident Gravina is doing to find himself to find solutions to be able to make the race in Udine with Israel in a perfect way, “explained the blue technical commissioner during the first conference in Coverciano. The Azzurri play on September 5 in Bergamo with Estonia and on Monday 8 against Israel on the neutral field of Debracen in Hungary. The appeal of the CT is to the fans. «I thank those of Bergamo that the stadium filled it and I ask that a Udinein October, is the same thing. We need our people and their enthusiasm. We know we can’t make mistakes ».
The position of the mayor of Udine
Just the game of Udine is the object of the dispute. There is a problem of opportunities and a political position and there is one of a practical nature, of public order. Alberto Felice De Tonimayor of Udine, where the Italy-Israel match should be played on October 14, invited to reflect on the opportunity to host the meeting in an interview with Messaggero Veneto: “Israel has not been excluded from international competitions, but in front of a drama that has no equal in the last eighty years, I say: let’s stop, playing now would be inappropriate”. His proposal is that of a postponement.
The Municipality of Udine has no direct decision -making power that is organized by UEFA and therefore the interlocutor is the Italian Football Federation. However, the mayor recalled that there have been manifestations of dissent: «They will not be able to be there in a month and a half. I think it would be appropriate to postpone the game and recover it later: unfortunately I fear that in a month and a half the fire will not be reached ». 20 thousand signatures were collected in an online petition.
The point of view of the field
From the football view there are no spaces in calendar international for a recovery. The drawing of the groups of the World Cup is December 5 at the Kennedy Center in Washington. The qualifying groups must end on November 18, while the teams that must make the play -offs go in March 2026. There is a sports policy problem. If Fifa opposed a postponement and gave one or both games won at the table in Israel it would be the definitive end of the blue hopes to go to the World Cup and would be the third jump in a row. You could play closed doors or allocate the game to another location that could oppose. Referring to the game would also mean showing that it does not know how to manage international events by precluding Italy to host it.
The requests for exclusion of Israel
Israel, unlike what happened to Russia After the invasion of Ukraine, he was not excluded from sports competitions with his teams and athletes. In several cases, however, the Israeli presence has been contested. During the award ceremony at the European Fencing Championships Under23, the Swiss team did not turn to the flag during the execution of the Israel’s amus. At the Rimini Meeting, last week, the Minister of Sport Andrea Abodi He reiterated the no to the Israeli exclusion also requested by the Sport Manager Mauro Berruto. «I think you would take a further step back compared to the function of the sport that must unite rather than divide. I think this is the phase in which diplomacies must be increasingly incisive. Sport I hope can further perform this function, however you have to have a wide vision of the news, of the facts that are shocking, painful, remove their breath ».
The President of the Italian Coach Association Renzo Ulivieri He wrote a letter to the President of the Football Federation, Gabriele Gravina, to ask for the suspension of Israel from international competitions. The request is to mobilize for Gaza and to forward the request to UEFA and FIFA. “An action not only symbolic, a necessary choice, which responds to a moral imperative, shared by the whole manager of the AIAC”.
Source: Vanity Fair
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