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Soccer - Union confirms Bolivia players' national team boycott
Thu, Oct 01, 2009
Reuters

LA PAZ, BOLIVIA (Reuters) - Bolivia's players will boycott the national team's World Cup qualifiers against Brazil and Peru in the next fortnight, their union Fabol said on Wednesday.

"None of those (players) called up will go to the (team's) concentration," Fabol's executive secretary Milton Melgar, a former Bolivia midfielder, told a news conference.

Fabol announced in mid-September that their members were resigning from the national team indefinitely in demand of major changes to the structure of the domestic game.

Bolivia coach Erwin Sanchez named a 22-man squad on Tuesday for the matches at home to Brazil on Oct 11 and away to Peru on Oct. 14 and said they would gather on Thursday to begin their preparations.

Both are dead rubbers since Brazil have already qualified for the 2010 finals while Bolivia and Peru, in the bottom two places of the South American group, are out of the running.

Fabol wants a single authority rather than the three separate bodies in charge of the country's football. The League (LFPB) organises the professional game, the National Association (ANF) is in charge of amateur soccer and the Bolivian Football Federation (FBF) does administrative tasks.

"Bolivian football is in a deep crisis and as long as our proposals are not put into practice, the whole country's professional footballers ... indefinitely refuse to represent our national team," Fabol said earlier this month.

The FBF has not commented on the situation in which they could be obliged to field a youth team against Brazil and Peru.

 

 

 
 
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