International footballers arrive in Erbil for WAFF Championship
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – As the members of teams participating in the 2019 West Asian Football Federation (WAFF) Championship arrived in Erbil on Friday, workers were completing the finishing touches at the city’s Franso Hariri Stadium for the upcoming matches set to be held there on Sunday.
The tournament is being held in the autonomous Kurdistan Region's capital and also southward in the Iraqi city of Karbala.
The head of the Iraqi Football Federation, Abdul-Khaliq Masoud, reviewed the work’s progress at the stadium on Thursday along with Chairman of the Erbil Group Organizing Committee Ali Jabbar al-Asadi, and Hussein Saeed, Chairman of the West Asian Union’s Supervisory Committee.
During a field tour of the facility, Asadi said that “all preparations have been completed, and Erbil is ready to receive” the teams, adding that “the ultimate goal is the success of Iraq, organizationally, and this is what we seek to achieve.”
Saeed said, in a statement, “I call on the Iraqis to join together to make the tournament a success.”
It is the first major tournament held in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region since the Gulf War in 1991.
Group A of the tournament, which includes the teams from Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, and Lebanon, are playing their matches at Karbala International Stadium. Group B, playing in Erbil, is made up of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan.
The first match in Karbala was marred by controversy after local religious conservatives condemned the opening ceremony of the game for including a female instrumentalist playing the Iraqi national anthem on a violin while three other performers—two of them female—danced.
Among the critics was former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who claimed the performance was indecent and stained the sanctity of the city, considered holy to Shia Muslims.
Editing by John J. Catherine
