{"id":62754,"date":"2024-02-21T14:33:14","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T14:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/japan-womens-captain-condemns-asian-football-chiefs-the-express-tribune\/"},"modified":"2024-02-21T14:33:14","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T14:33:14","slug":"japan-womens-captain-condemns-asian-football-chiefs-the-express-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/japan-womens-captain-condemns-asian-football-chiefs-the-express-tribune\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan women’s captain condemns Asian football chiefs | The Express Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\nTOKYO:
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Japan women’s captain Saki Kumagai has criticised Asian football officials after the away leg of their tie against North Korea for a spot at the Paris Olympics<\/a> was moved to Saudi Arabia days before the game.<\/p>\n

Kumagai said that the Asian Football Confederation “have a responsibility” to look after players after Saturday’s match was switched from Pyongyang to Jeddah.<\/p>\n

Kumagai spoke to reporters in Japan on Tuesday as she was set to leave for Saudi Arabia, just a day after jetting in from her Italian club Roma.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old said “this kind of thing can’t happen”, referring to the late notice the national team had been given.<\/p>\n

Japan’s<\/a> football association had reportedly asked the AFC to move the first leg from the North Korean capital Pyongyang over a lack of operational transparency and a scarcity of flights.<\/p>\n

Reports say the JFA did not receive confirmation that Saudi Arabia would be the new venue until Monday night, and the kick-off time and stadium have yet to be announced.<\/p>\n

“As players it’s our job to prepare for the match but the organisers definitely have a responsibility to make sure we are in our best condition,” added Kumagai.<\/p>\n

“This can’t happen again.”<\/p>\n

The return leg of the playoff for a place at this summer’s Olympics takes place in Tokyo on February 28.<\/p>\n

Because of the uncertainty surrounding the first leg, Japan’s four England-based players stayed in London until the venue was confirmed, rather than joining the squad in Japan.<\/p>\n

Despite the disruption Kumagai said the team “can’t end up using this as an excuse”.<\/p>\n

“The most important thing is for us not to let this stress us out and we must concentrate on the game,” she said.<\/p>\n

The AFC did not immediately reply to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TOKYO: Japan women’s captain Saki Kumagai has criticised Asian football officials after the away leg of their tie against North Korea for a spot at the Paris Olympics was moved to Saudi Arabia days before the game. Kumagai said that the Asian Football Confederation “have a responsibility” to look after players after Saturday’s match was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.tribune.com.pk\/media\/images\/WhatsApp-Image-2024-02-21-at-5-08-00-PM1708517293-0\/WhatsApp-Image-2024-02-21-at-5-08-00-PM1708517293-0.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}