January 22- The newly-elected head of the Kuwait Football Association has welcomed the appointment of a normalisation committee to oversee the county’s re-entry as a FIFA member following its suspension in 2015.
Last month, after the Kuwaiti parliament passed a new law in line with FIFA’s requirements, the FIFA Bureau – comprising president Gianni Infantino and heads of the six regional confederations – lifted the suspension that had been imposed because of government meddling in the affairs of KFA.
On Friday FIFA announced the normalisation committee “to run the KFA’s daily affairs; to review the KFA statutes and ensure their compliance… [and] to organise and conduct elections of a new KFA board of directors on the basis of the new, revised KFA statutes, which should take place no later than 20 May 2018.”
Welcoming the move, KFA chief Ahmad al-Yousuf al-Sabah said: “Kuwaitis were very happy when the ban was lifted,” hinting he might step down if needs be. “We are willing to sacrifice ourselves for the ban not to be imposed again.”
Both FIFA and the International Olympic Committee suspended Kuwait in October 2015 for the second time since 2010 forcing the Gulf state to miss out on the qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup and the 2019 Asian Cup, and before that the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
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