Tehran on Friday denounced a “political” decision behind the cancellation of a controversial friendly between Iran and Canada ahead of the World Cup in Qatar (November 21 to December 18), which the Canadian Football Association announced the day before the November 5 meeting Cancel June in Vancouver.
This duel between two already qualified teams had sparked controversy in Canada, two years after a plane carrying mostly Canadian nationals was shot down by Iranian anti-aircraft defenses shortly after take-off from Tehran. Iran’s deputy judiciary chief Kazem Gharibabadi tweeted on Friday that “the so-called land of the free” cannot “keep politics out of the field.”
Recently, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the game was “not a very good idea”. On January 8, 2020, Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) flight PS752 Tehran-Kyiv crashed, killing all 176 people on board, including 85 Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Iranian forces admitted three days later that they “accidentally” shot down the plane.
The Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims had asked Canada Soccer to cancel the game. Shortly after the cancellation of the meeting was announced, Mohammad Jamaat, media manager of the Iranian team, said on local television that Tehran would “appeal to Fifa” against this decision.
Tehran on Friday denounced a “political” decision behind the cancellation of a controversial friendly between Iran and Canada ahead of the World Cup in Qatar (November 21-December 18). The day before, the Football Canada Association had announced that it would cancel the June 5th meeting in Vancouver, where this game between two already qualified teams…
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