FIFA reinstates Iraq to international football

World football’s governing body FIFA on Friday lifted its suspension on the Iraqi Football Association after a solution was found to a spat over alleged government interference, officials said.

“Iraq is fully back as a member of FIFA,” said governing body president Sepp Blatter.

The Iraqi football association (IFA) was suspended in November 2009 after police seized control of its offices and its governing board was dissolved on charges of links to executed dictator Saddam Hussein.

FIFA had called for the members of the association’s Executive Committee to be reinstated.

It said Friday that the Iraqi national Olympic committee and the International Olympic Committee had helped restore the IFA’s “full authority”.

“In the meantime we had a lot of positive interventions of countries in Europe. Italy and France, they wanted to help Iraqi football back in,” Blatter explained.

Iraqi FA statutes would also be reorganised by May 31 and voted on about two months later under the agreement, he added.

The suspension had excluded Iraqi clubs and the Asian Nations Cup winning national side from international matches and barred the country from receiving aid to rebuild football in the country.

The Iraqi government had described FIFA’s suspension as unfair, arguing that the football association had been involved in corruption and that its move had been supported by local football clubs.

Football is highly popular in Iraq, boosted by the national side’s victory in the 2007 Asian Nations Cup.

FIFA had repeatedly expressed concern about political interference in the sport in Iraq in the run up to the suspension, as the football association was caught in the power struggle between different factions.

Iraq had already been briefly sidelined from international football in May 2008, after the government dissolved the national Olympic Committee.

After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in the 2003 US-led invasion, Iraq’s new mainly Shiite leadership had taken control of the Olympic Committee and all other sports federations.

Iraqi football was headed by Saddam’s elder son, Uday, during the previous regime.