After New Zealand’s allegations that one of its players was subjected to racist abuse at the hands of an opponent, the international friendly match between New Zealand and Qatar was called off on Monday in Austria.
After the first half of the match, New Zealand did not come back out for the second half because of an incident that took place just before the interval while they were ahead 1-0.
A player from Qatar made racist comments at Michael Boxall when they were playing the first half of the game. Because there was no official action taken, the squad has decided that they will not come out for the second half of the match, according to a tweet from the New Zealand Football Federation.
Andrew Pragnell, the chief executive of New Zealand Football, said that the governing body of the sport completely backed “the action of our players.”
“We never want to see a match abandoned, but some issues are bigger than football, and it is important to make a stand,” he said in a statement. “We have a responsibility to stand up for what we believe in.”
“There is no room for racism in the game of football.”
Carlos Queiroz, the coach of Qatar, said that the New Zealand captain approached him after halftime to notify him that his team would not be continuing the game.
“The following is a list of the facts. It seems that two players on the field had a conversation with each other, as Queiroz said to the Qatari sports station Alkass.
“The New Zealand players came to the conclusion that they needed to back their comrade. Everyone on our squad has made the decision to back our athlete.
“The coaching staff of New Zealand is also behind the New Zealand player’s statement,” the player said. We stand by our player even if they chose to quit the game in the absence of any witnesses.
“The referee did not hear the dialogue, and nobody on the benches or among the coaches heard it either. A disagreement between two players, that’s all.”
Queiroz said that he was anticipating an investigation into the situation from FIFA.
“Let’s allow the football authorities to take a decision about what happened,” he continued. “Let’s not rush into anything.”
“I believe that FIFA will be looking into this case, for sure, because I asked the coach and the referees, and nobody (heard anything),” I said. “I think this case will be under the observation of FIFA.”
The second game was called off.
In a second incident, which took place in Austria as well, a match between the Republic of Ireland Under-21s and the Kuwait Under-22s was halted when it was reported that a player from Ireland was the focus of racist comments.
According to a tweet sent by the Football Association of Ireland, “The FAI regrets to announce that today’s U21 international against Kuwait has been abandoned after a racist remark was made by a Kuwaiti player towards one of our substitutes,” the match was called off because of the incident.
“The FAI does not tolerate any form of racism towards any of our players or staff members, and we will be reporting this serious matter to both FIFA and UEFA.”
According to Jarrah Al-Ateeqi, the director of the Kuwait squad, the friendly was cut short in the second half owing to “roughness and excessive tension between the players.” This caused the game to be called off.
According to Al-Ateeqi, “the match was stopped at the 70th minute to protect the players from getting injured.”