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Asian soccer scores own goal

Asian soccer faces a return to the dark days of the 1960s if its officials carry out their threat to boycott the qualifying competition of the 2002 World Cup finals.

In the mid-1960s, every Asian nation apart from North Korea boycotted the qualifiers in a row over the allocation of places for the 1966 finals in England.

More than three decades later, the same principle is at the heart of the current crisis -- the number of places allocated to one of the world's most populous regions but one of the weakest in terms of achievement on the field.

Although the finals are being staged in Asia for the first time in 2002 by joint-hosts South Korea and Japan, the 45-nation strong Asian Football Confederation have long been unhappy about their allocation.

They are insisting, to world governing body FIFA, that they will be under-represented with only four Asian nations competing in the finals -- South Korea and Japan plus two qualifiers.

Asia's argument is that it had four qualifiers -- Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Iran amd Japan -- at last year's World Cup finals in France and is effectively being penalised for hosting the finals by being reduced to just two qualifiers for 2002.

They maintain that South Korea and Japan qualifying automatically as hosts is an irrelevance.

They want parity at least with 1998 -- when they had three automatic qualifiers with Iran coming through as the fourth after winning a play-off against Australia.

On Tuesday, it appeared that a compromise had been reached in meetings ahead of yesterday's FIFA congress in Los Angeles when UEFA said it would give up one of its automatic qualifying berths and instead volunteered a play-off between a European country and an Asian nation.

Asia's entire delegation had earlier walked out of a FIFA congress on Friday in protest over the allocation of places for the 2002 World Cup finals and repeated a threat to boycott the qualifying tournament.

Despite an impassioned plea from FIFA president Sepp Blatter, Asian delegates stood up and left the conference room en masse, leaving the remaining national associations in stunned silence.

"This continent has 3.5 billion people and is hosting the World Cup for the first time," Asian Football Confederation (AFC) general secretary Peter Velappan points out.

"This matter has been going on for several months, it's no use FIFA waking up to it now. The issue is quite clear: we want three full qualifying berths plus two for the host nations. The ball is now in FIFA's court.

"We will only reconsider if Mr Blatter can come up with an amicable conclusion. There is sufficient time to solve this but it is now FIFA's responsibility."

Blatter was clearly infuriated. "This is a day of shame," he told a news conference later.

"When you're in a family you do not leave the table before dinner is served. We paid for their flights, their hotel and their food. Is it polite to react in this way?"

Velappan rejected the UEFA offer of a playoff, and said that Asia demanded five berths, without relying on a playoff.

"We want South America to give up half a place as well," he said. "There is no justification for a continent of 10 FIFA nations having a possible five places."

The walk-out was the first in FIFA history and Blatter said he felt betrayed. "I was irritated and shocked. I met the AFC president (Sultan Ahmed Shah) several times yesterday and today and he told me he would play things low key," Blatter said.

"He said he was happy to have been given half a place by the Europeans and that he could not expect to have additional slots just because two Asian nations were staging the World Cup."

Blatter said an inquiry would now be launched to try to find a solution but hinted Asian member countries could be punished.

Asked whether he would contemplate moving the World Cup elsewhere, Blatter appeared to rule such a move out. But he repeated his anger at the Asian stance.

"This cannot be accepted -- impossible," he said. "There will definitely be an inquiry. They have been so stubborn and I don't know why."

A South American source who asked not to be identified said earlier his confederation would agree to the Asian request to give up half a place "over our dead bodies".

Unless the issue were resolved by FIFA, said Velappan, the AFC would call an emergency meeting within the next 60 days to endorse the decision, taken by its executive committee on Thursday, to boycott the qualifying tournament.

"This is not a bluff," Velappan insisted.

The Asians, who also boycotted the pre-congress dinner in Los Angeles on Thursday night, were begged by an anxious and clearly embarrassed Blatter not to walk out of Friday's extraordinary congress which, because of FIFA's rules, could not include any discussion of matters not on the agenda.

The FIFA president, trying his hardest to maintain some decorum in the middle of one of the biggest crises to hit the world body in recent times, said earlier he had been "shocked and surprised" both by the Asian boycott announcement and its planned walk-out.

"I have tried to find a solution to increase Asia's number of spots," he said. "I have negotiated with other continents and UEFA has already, generously, given up half an allocation.

"I agreed privately with the AFC president to take up this further problem outside the confines of this conference. This explains my shock reaction today."

UNI