Nepal 2012: March 8-19th
The most important tourney in 2012 for the Palestinian National Team is the Challenge Cup, due to be held in Nepal in six weeks. The eventual winner will qualify directly for the 2015 Asian Cup, so for all those involved it is akin to a condensed Asian Cup Qualifying campaign. Palestine has been placed in Group A alongside the Maldives, 2010 Finalists Turkmenistan and hosts Nepal. You can read more about the tournament here.
Looking further ahead, Palestine will, for the second year in a row, host a tournament in commemoration of the Nakba in May, except this time the tournament will feature National Teams instead of club sides. PFA President Jibril Rajoub is currently busy trying to convince the list of invitees to attend. So far, Tunisia has confirmed that it will send its U23 team, Jordan is a likely (yet unconfirmed) participant, and at the time of writing Mauritania's FA is being coaxed out of international wilderness by Rajoub.
Arab Nations Cup: Palestine not invited
In June, Saudi Arabia will host a revived Arab Nations Cup. Unfortunately for fans of Arab Football this tournament is dead on arrival. In order to guarantee the maximum participation Continental championships are usually planned and organized years in advance. The 2012 edition of the Arab Nations Cup was put together in six months. It was originally supposed to feature a qualifying phase whereby 16 nations were whittled down to eight finalists (In case you are wondering, 22 nations make up the Union of Arab Football Associations). With a slew of nations turning down the invite due to World Cup Qualifying commitments, the organizers decided to scrap the qualification phase and go ahead with a 12-team tournament.
Due to their unfortunate and somewhat misleading FIFA ranking Palestine was amongst the non-invitees. Sharing the ignominy of a non-invite were Djibouti, Mauritania, and Somalia.
The farcical nature of the tournament was sealed when 2010 World Cup finalists Algeria declined the invite. Also deciding not to take part (Who wouldn't want to play football in the summer in Saudi Arabia?) were: Jordan (perhaps the best Arab team in 2011), Egypt (the most successful Arab team of all-time), talent-laden Morocco, and cash-laden Qatar.
WAFF Championship: November 20 - December 23rd
Palestine has yet to schedule any friendlies for the summer but will be back in action once November rolls around. Defending WAFF Champion Kuwait will host the 7th edition of the tournament which will run from November 20 until December 23rd. Eleven of the 13 WAFF Nations have confirmed their participation, Qatar have formally declined, whilst UAE have yet to RSVP.
7 comments:
A question to the group admins: Do you recognize the right of Israel to exist & the current map of the 1967 borders?
We do not make political statements on this blog. This blog is about football and strictly football (unfortunately politics affect our team's ability to succeed on the pitch. And only when that matter comes up do we address the issue.)
If you have a question about football we'd be happy to answer it. Personally, I don't think the Israeli government are holding their breath on wether two Palestinian guys recognize their legitimacy or subscribe to their ever-changing 'current' map.
Another question: If the one-state solution would become real, would you support that TEAM or just the Arab players?
Just the Arab players.
That was a joke.
Your question is too theoretical.I think I'd need to write a treatise with footers and appendices to give you an answer. And the whole 'one state' idea is debated extensively on other sites so I wont bother opening a debate over here, this is a football blog.
But I'll hit you back with a theoretical answer:
If a Jewish person who identified as "Palestinian"(they're out there) wanted to play for Palestine,hes welcome in my books.
It's good to see you guys putting Palestinian football into the bloggersphere. I do a bit of campaigning for Palestine here in London and I'm trying to discover the fate of the national squad member who was apparently detained by the Israelis in 2009 - Mahmoud Kamel As-Sarsak? When I google him, all the references lead back to the same old report. Do you know what happened to him?
Im not too familiar with his case. Ran an Arabic google search..the latest report mentioning him is from December, saying he is one of 3 people imprisoned under some "illegal fighter" law, whatever that means.
Other reports from August say his detention was extended for 6 months.
Given its February, those 6 months should be up
Thanks Aboud. Even if he's been released, I guess he's still not available for the national squad. The political situation must make it really hard to develop and maintain a coherent team.
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