Lawmaker Sulu Sou has issued a letter to FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, to call for a rescheduling of the match between Macau and Sri Lanka. The match was originally scheduled to take place on June 11 in the Sri Lankan capital city Colombo but the game never took place as the Macau Football Association (MFA) did not allow the participation of the local team in the match citing safety concerns.
Now, in a letter to Infantino extended also to the MFA, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the Sri Lankan Football Federation (FFSL), the lawmaker called for the match to be rescheduled, claiming that the one-sided decision from MFA has left, “many players, coaches, football fans and citizens very dissatisfied with the decision of the MFA.”
Sou notes that local football fans found the decision by MFA disrespectful to the Macau Team as it had wasted the efforts and dreams of the players.
According to Sou, a call was launched at the time by local football fans via a campaigned named “One Person, One Letter,” in which people individually wrote letters to FIFA, AFC and FFSL requesting the entities call for the match to be played on neutral-ground, and gathered the support of around 1,800 people. An additional 48 local football players from several levels and age groups jointly signed a petition to MFA to withdraw the decision to cancel the match.
Sou added that according to information from AFC, a final decision on the case of the match between Sri Lanka and Macau is still to be announced and should be known before next stage draw scheduled for July 18 noting that, in his opinion, there is still time to amend “MFA’s misjudgment.” He claimed this was the result of a mix between “administrative issues and personal decisions unrelated to sports.”
“The incident has surpassed pure sports events and has become a public concern of the community,” wrote Sou.
The lawmaker says his position as a representative of Macau’s citizens means he has the duty to try to help the players of Macau Team not to “lose a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Sou called on all the football governing bodies to ensure the case is handled in a “satisfactory manner so that both sides can compete against each other in accordance with the sacred spirit of ‘Fair Play’.”
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