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Bolivia’s Morales asks Pele to fight FIFA ban

LA PAZ: Bolivian President Evo Morales urged Brazilian soccer great Pele on Wednesday to back Andean countries in their fight against a FIFA ban on high-altitude international matches.

World soccer’s governing body banned games over 8,200 feet (2,500 metres) last month, saying playing in oxygen-thin air was a health hazard and distorted fair competition. But the measure has drawn strong criticism in Andean countries.

“I want to take this opportunity to ask ... the king of soccer, Pele, to defend his brothers, who are being discriminated against,” Morales told soccer chiefs and mayors from six Andean nations at a meeting in the Bolivian capital. “Someone who’s been discriminated against themselves can’t discriminate against someone else, in this case against people who live at high altitude,” the Bolivian leader said.

Pele has expressed support for the FIFA ban, saying he did not understand why it had taken the world body so long to act. Soccer officials in the affected countries have speculated that the ban is the result of lobbying by football powerhouses Brazil and Argentina, who frequently complain about having to face their Andean neighbours at high altitude.

Because of the ban, five South American nations will be unable to host international games in some of their largest cities. The Organisation of American States called on FIFA on Tuesday to reconsider the step.

The mayors of the three South American capitals affected by the measure – La Paz, the Colombian capital Bogota and the Ecuadorean capital Quito – attended Wednesday’s meeting. Representatives of the Peruvian city of Cuzco and the Chilean town of Calama, and the sports ministers from Venezuela and Ecuador, as well as the mayors of about 100 Bolivian towns, also took part. reuters

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