The Eritrean Football Federation has withdrawn the men's national team from qualifying for the 2026 World Cup over concerns that players will try to escape and seek political asylum while traveling abroad.
This was reported by sources close to the team, writes The Guardian newspaper.
In a joint statement, FIFA and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) said that all matches of the Eritrea national team have been cancelled. It was published a few days before the Eritrean national team was due to fly out for the first match against Morocco. No reasons for the decision are given.
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Eritrean players were reported to have been preparing for the national team's first two matches for three months before learning that the team would not qualify for the 2026 World Cup.
According to several sources close to the team, the main reason is to prevent players from taking advantage of the national team's trip abroad and fleeing by asking for political asylum due to the oppressive regime of Eritrean dictator Isaias Afwerki, which, among other things, imposes lifelong military service many citizens of the country.
In qualifying for the 2026 World Cup, Eritrea was scheduled to play Morocco, Zambia, Congo, Tanzania and Niger.
The last time the Eritrea national team played against Sudan was in January 2020 as part of a friendly match, and the last tournament match took place back in September 2019 as part of the qualification for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Since Eritrea have not played a single match in the last 48 months, they have fallen out of the FIFA rankings. Eritrea had to play all matches away from home due to the lack of a stadium in the country that meets CAF requirements.
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Cases of athletes fleeing from Eritrea
Since 2009, it is estimated that more than 60 Eritrean athletes have used their status as international players to seek asylum. The last time this was done was in November 2021 by five female football players who were supposed to play in the national team under the age of 20 against the Ugandan national team on the road.
In December 2019, following Eritrea's first run to the CESAFA Cup final, seven players went missing in Uganda and are still in hiding. In October of the same year, after the Eritrea U-20 team's victory over Zanzibar in the quarter-finals of the CESAFA Cup, four football players escaped.
