Peter Tosh celebrates for all of Bolivia
On Wednesday FIFA modified their altitude ban, arbitrarily moving the cutoff from 2,500 meters to 3,000 meters.
On Thursday, Bolivian president Evo Morales met with FIFA president Sepp Blatter for 45 minutes in an effort to get him to rescind the ban entirely.
On Friday, Blatter excluded La Paz, Bolivia {elevation 3,600 meters and where Bolivia play all of their home matches} from the ban.
Hurrah! Major props to Bolivian president and footy fanatic Evo Morales for continuing to fight the good fight until the right thing was done.
Bolivia can continue to playing in La Paz like Evo does all the time
{hell yeah you get to wear the #10 when you are president}.
Finally this silly arbitrary and capricious ban is essentially dead. The interesting thing is that FIFA didn't rescind the ban entirely but instead gave La Paz an exception, which doesn't really make sense. I was wondering who else is still affected by the ban, but none of the print reports so far have mentioned that. On Friday night's Fox Sports World Report, however, they reported that now the only place still affected by the band is Tibet. I encourage them to go Beastie Boys and fight for their rights as well. Hmmm, "Free Tibet" sounds like a catchy slogan...
2 comments:
I think they made the exemption so that Bolivia wouldn't try any shenanigans - remember the ostensible trigger match for the ban was a Copa Libertadores match between a Brazilian club and a Bolivian club at 4000 meters / 13,100 feet. This way Bolivia can still play national team matches in the capital, but can't otherwise take further advantage.
Yes, and also, by giving the exemption instead of throwing the ban out entirely, they can keep Peru from taking games from Lima up to Cuzco {3,326 meters, 10,912 feet}which they were openly talking about a few months ago and allegedly was another reason for the timing of the ban.
That Cuzco elevation of 3,326 meters probably also helps explain the arbitrary move from 2,500 to 3,000 feet earlier in the week, as it let Ecuador and Colombia back in but kept the Cuzco move out and also Bolivia before they gave the La Paz exemption.
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