The New Zealanders did not want to stay on the field when one of their players received racist insults.
Michael Boxall and other New Zealand players suspended the game against Qatar. PDO
New Zealand and Qatar met on Monday in a practice match on European turf in Austria. The event, which started as a friendly match, ended badly, as the New Zealand players did not return from the locker room at halftime.
The reason was the racist words of the Qatari player To Michael Boxa. The country’s football association announced after the match that the referee was not going to do anything about it and therefore the team decided to stop the game themselves.
The situation happened in the 40th minute of the match. Before the free kick for Qatar Yusuf Abdurisag spoke to Boxa who knocked him down and was visibly angry with him. The situation became heated, and soon the players took turns pushing each other.
Qatar’s Portuguese head coach Carlos Queiroz commented to the Al-Kass channel after the match that the situation requires clarification. Traveling all the way to Austria for half a game did not please the commander.
– The fact is that the two players talked to each other. Who spoke first? It’s between them. New Zealand supports their players and of course we support ours. They decided to stop the match without any witnesses to what happened.
Queiroz expects measures from the International Football Association.
– I can’t say whether Fifa can make decisions without witnesses. The fact is that we played a friendly match and the other team conceded.
The black-shirted New Zealand team tells in its announcementthat several team players heard the insults directed at Boxall.