Albanian Football Federation wants to inform the media and all the Albanian public regarding the non-participation of the Albanian National Team U-21 in the friendly match against Qatar, planned to be played on August the 06th at “Dandy United Stadium”, in Scotland. This is a very serious and unprecedented incident for Albanian Football Federation. We would like to inform the public opinion and Albanian media that for two months the AFF, has evaluated this match with the highest reliability and prepared the event and respective procedures, preparing list of candidates (too hard, considering that during this period players are involved in the preparatory stage with their clubs) and by completing all relevant documentation. The application is performed through the agency “Teleperformance” (officially authorized for these issues by the British Embassy in Poland) on July 22nd and 23rd. Relevant documents has been submitted on relative financial activity concerning flight, accommodation, local transportation and everything else, that was covered and properly shown. The required visa regime was “Priority”.
On August 04th, the team was expecting to receive visas and travel to Scotland, but the response of the Embassy of the United Kingdom, was a particularly unexpected refusal “for financial reasons” despite the complete documentation submitted within the term.
The Albanian Football Federation states its concern and displeasure about this absurd procedure. Yes, it is absurd, that this happens to a National Representative Team of a country that is a member of FIFA since 1932 and UEFA since 1954. It is totally unacceptable the visa denial to a national team in 2014 as if it was the beginning of the‘90s, after the communism fall.
Despite this situation wasn’t a consequence of neither our desire nor of our intentions and seriousness, the Albanian Football Federation apologizes the Qatar Football Association, as Host Association of this match for both moral and material damage caused to them by an absurd visa procedure of the Embassy of the United Kingdom.
The Albanian Football Federation informs as well that starting from today, all international organisms of European and World Football (FIFA and UEFA) and the English Football Association will be informed about this serious incident that affects the development of football and hinders the progress of our national teams, as well as cooperation with other federations. Also, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Albania was informed and asked to investigate through its diplomatic channels for explanations about the incident that seriously affects the performance of Albanian National Teams, the work of the Albanian Football Federation and the Albanian image to the world. AFF will be also be transparent and open with English interested media to provide all correspondence related to this senseless rejection and to sensitize against these absurd and outdated practices.
We express our confidence in meeting the understanding of our players of National Team U-21, staff, family members and in particular the general public and media, for what happened.
AFF guarantees that will seriously work in the coming days by mobilizing all its potential so that this issue may be discussed internationally and similar episodes do not happen ever again.
