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| Bahrein to take Iran’s place in World football Cup ?
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Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a visit to his country's football team training session
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Members of the European Parliament will seek next week to ban Iran from the football World Cup, which starts next month in Germany, to protest the Iranian President’s statements on Israel and the Holocaust.
According to Parliament sources, these MEPs are to send a letter to Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, the world football body, urging him to take action in the light of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's calls for the destruction of Israel, denial of the Holocaust and refusal to halt his country's nuclear activity.
"We have cross-party support for this and we will now go back to our governments and opposition parties, asking them to back our call," British conservative MEP Chris Heaton-Harris, who took the initiative, said.
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Christopher Heaton-Harris, MEP |
It is however unclear how many MEPs out of the parliament's 732 members would sign the letter which has not been released yet.
A plenary session of the European Parliament will take place next week in Strasbourg, France.
FIFA not mixing politics with sports
Heaton-Harris, a former referee and secretary of the European Parliament's sports intergroup, suggested that Bahrain, which finished second to Iran in the World Cup qualification round, gets the Iranians' place in the tournament, set to start in Germany in June.
"This would also send the message that we are not against Muslims, but just against Iran and its policies," he said.
Heaton-Harris argued that boycotting certain countries from international sports events had been done in the past, mentioning the international lockout of South Africa from sports events at the time of apartheid.
But FIFA has repeatedly insisted it will not mix politics with sports.
In 1992, Denmark replaced the former Yugoslavia in the football European Championships in Sweden after it was expelled from the competition and the 1994 World Cup qualifiers as part of United Nations sanctions relating to the Balkans War.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has condemned the Iranian President Ahmadinjejad's comments, but said she would not seek to ban Iran from the World Cup finals, which kick off on June 9.
Iran kick off their campaign against Mexico in Nuremberg on 11 June with further group games against Portugal and Angola.
Bahrain ready
A Bahraini sports official said the country would be prepared to travel to the World Cup if any of the qualifiers are booted out.
General Organisation for Youth and Sports director of planning, Yousif Bubshait, did not wish to comment on political decision-making and only about the sporting implications. "To take this decision is not our call," he said. "It is not good if that happens (Iran being thrown out), but the decision is not in our hands.
"It would be great for Bahrain to participate in such an international event and for the first time. If it happened it would be very good for us."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made worldwide last December by saying the Holocaust is a "myth fabricated to create a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world." He repeated his remarks in several later speeches.
Earlier he said the state of Israel is a "tumour" that should be moved to Europe or "wiped off the map.”
EU leaders reacted by declaring that "these comments are wholly unacceptable and have no place in civilized political debate.”
This week, while on a visit to Jakarta, Indonesia, he reiterated his attacks, saying that Israel will "one day vanish."
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