Football: Angry Asians threaten World Cup boycott

ASIAN FOOTBALL faces a return to the dark days of the 1960s if its officials carry out their threat to boycott the qualifying competition of the 2002 World Cup finals.

In the mid-1960s, every Asian nation, apart from North Korea, boycotted the qualifiers in a row over the allocation of places for the 1966 finals in England. More than three decades later, the same principle is at the heart of the current crisis - the number of places allocated to the Asians.

The 45-nation Asian Football Confederation is insisting to Fifa that it will be under- represented with only four Asian nations competing in the finals - South Korea and Japan plus two qualifiers.

Asia had four qualifiers, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Iran and Japan, at last year's World Cup finals and is effectively being penalised for hosting the finals by being reduced to just two qualifiers for 2002.

They maintain that South Korea and Japan qualifying automatically as hosts is an irrelevance. They want parity, at least, with 1998, when they had three automatic qualifiers, with Iran coming through as the fourth after winning a play-off against Australia.

On Tuesday it appeared a compromise had been reached in meetings ahead of yesterday's Fifa Congress in Los Angeles, when Uefa said it would give up one of its automatic qualifying berths and, instead, volunteered a play-off between a European country and an Asian nation.

In football's political parlance, that is known as a half-place, and earlier this week it seemed Asian officials might settle for that. But Thursday's emergency meeting of Asian delegates in Los Angeles proved just the opposite.

Asia's argument is that, because the finals are in Asia and because they have improved sufficiently, they should have more places.

Asian representation at the finals has increased since 1982 when only one nation took part.

The allocation increased to two in 1986 and jumped to four last year, when the finals were enlarged from 24 to 32 teams.

There is no suggestion, as yet, that, if the boycott goes ahead, the finals would be moved. But Fifa might only be pushed so far. According to some observers, the Asians are playing a high-stakes game.