(ATR) Palestinian Prime Minister Salman Fayyad says his country's landmark international fixture against Thailand was a crucial step on the road to statehood and that he hopes to see Palestine compete at next year's London Olympics as an independent state.
"Football in Palestine has come a long way," Fayyad told reporters at Wednesday night's Olympic qualifier in Ramallah - the first time a competitive international match that has been played on Palestinian soil.
"Relative to a couple of years ago, what we have now is a competitive match as you can tell, one side representing a country that has been around for a very long time, and the other - well, we're working on becoming a country."
Of the London Olympics, he added: "It is definitely something to look forward to. We are definitely going to show up in London, hopefully as the state of Palestine."
Palestine's footballers will not be joining the country's other athletes after losing their preliminary tie with Thailand 6-5 on penalties.
Palestine won 1-0 on the night, following an earlier 0-1 defeat away to Thailand in the first leg. Abdulhamid Abuhabib from Gaza scored the only goal with a stunning volley into the corner of the net shortly before half-time.
Fayyad said that the day's significance was ultimately political.
FIFA has recognized Palestine since 1998, through the painful collapse of the Oslo-brokered peace talks and the al-Aqsa intifada. With the country now on the brink of statehood, he said that it was more evidence that the country was assuming the vestiges of a fully fledged country.
A poignant reminder of the struggles Palestine continues to face under Israeli occupation came when Israel blocked eight players crossing into the West Bank from Gaza. Four players were allowed to pass, along with six Gazan Palestine FA officials and six Gaza-based journalists.
Nor were Palestine's players the only ones to encounter Israel's border restrictions.
AFC president Mohamed Bin Hammam was detained at the Jordanian border on Monday night for nearly two hours, despite holding a diplomatic passport.
For more from Ramallah, visit World Football Insider.
Reported from Ramallah by James Corbett.
Últimas Noticias
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Beyond the final result, Roland Garros left the feeling that the Italian and the Spaniard will shape the great duel that came to help us through the duel for the end of the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era.
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
She is the third in her sport and the seventh athlete to achieve it in the same edition; in Santiago 2023 she was the first athlete with disabilities to compete at the Pan American level and won a medal.
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Argentinian Rodrigo Isgró received a five-game suspension for an indiscipline in the circuit’s decisive clash that would exclude him until the final or the bronze match; the Federation will seek to make the appeal successful.
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
The Kenyan received the maximum sanction for irregularities in his biological passport and the Court considered that he was part of a system of “deliberate and sophisticated doping” to improve his performance. He will lose his record and the bronze medal at the Doha World Cup.
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
The American, a seven-time Olympic champion, referred to the case of the 23 positive controls before the Tokyo Games that were announced a few weeks ago and shook the swimming world. “I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low,” he said.
