Yemen sacks chess team for Israel game
Published: 7:12PM
Wednesday September 22, 2010
Source: Reuters
Yemen’s sports minister has dismissed the Yemeni national chess team for playing against Israel in an international tournament, a government website said today.
The team was participating in the World Chess Olympics in Belarus when it played their Israeli opponents, the official September 26 Net website said.
Yemen is a member of the World Chess Federation, ranking 89th in a list of 154 countries.
Israel is ranked 5th.
Some Arab sports teams have cancelled participation in international championships in the past because of Israel’s participation.
Source: http://tvnz.co.nz
[22/September/2010]
Meeting Israelis was personal act and not in line with Yemen’s official plans rejecting any kind of normalization with Israel, Ubad said.
The Ministry of Youth and Sports will hold accountable who acted like that because all Yemenis at the championship were notified if one’s lots brought them to play with an Israeli they would withdraw, said Ubad, as he noted the team has already withdrawn from the championship and is expected home soon.
FR
Saba
http://www.sabanews.net
how sad, the Chessplayers should come together with proper sportsman/person behaviour at all team events. A Governament Politics have no place at the Olympiad.
The players deserve praise for there proper conduct, but the officals clearly have no idea of Sportsmanship and decent behaviour at an important international event.
I don’t know what the facts are but on the face of it seems like some very brave Yemeni chess players. You would like to hope they defied their govt and played, even if they don’t like the Israeli govt, for humanitarian reasons. I hope the Yemen government will be forgiving and do some reaching out of its own.
yemen worked good.
Officals should play their political games somewhere else but not in chess tournaments.