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Letter to the FIFA

Updated: 18/May/2006 10:45

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Dear Mr Blatter,

We, the undersigned, call for Iran to be banned from this year's football World Cup. Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, appears to be intent on using his country's participation for his own political purposes.

President Ahmadinejad has repeatedly sought to undermine the international community. He continues to defy the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) rules on nuclear proliferation; he calls for the destruction of the state of Israel; and he has referred to the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust as a "myth".

President Ahmadinejad must understand that such conduct is unacceptable, and that he cannot expect the world to stand idly by as he takes every opportunity - including the World Cup - to provoke and offend. Sporting boycotts have worked before, and we believe this will send a clear signal to the Iranian people that President Ahmadinejad's actions are harming their progress towards greater co-operation with the international community.

We would like to emphasize that this letter is not, and cannot be interpreted as, anti-Islamic - under the FIFA rules, the team that would replace Iran is Bahrain, also an Islamic nation. Rather, this is an effort to prevent Mr Ahmadinejad from using the World Cup as a platform for promoting his personal agenda and inflaming tensions further.

There are those who feel that politics and sport should remain separate. We genuinely wish that this would be the case. However, as Mr Ahmadinejad appears willing to politicise the World Cup, we feel it is only right to respond politically in order to protect the integrity of the tournament.

We appeal to FIFA to act to safeguard this summer's festival of sport from being hijacked by Mr Ahmadinejad's political agenda.

Yours sincerely,

Chris Heaton-Harris MEP (EPP-ED, UK Conservative)
Martin Callanan MEP (EPP-ED, UK Conservative)
Filip Kaczmarek MEP (EPP-ED, Poland)
Anders Samuelsen MEP (ALDE, Denmark Social Liberals)
Jose Ribeiro E Castro MEP (EEP-ED, Coligacao Forca Portugal)

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