Kuwait Refused to Play Israel at WTC

[Carolina Blue]

I just read on another forum (Kozoom.com) that Kuwait refused to play Israel at the World Team Championship and that Kuwait was then forfeited out of the event. While I am glad that the organizer had the chutzpah to forfeit them out it is very sad that the politics of hate creep into sport anywhere or at anytime.

 

[skor]

I was on the Israeli team that was supposed to play Kuwait....
Few interesting points:

• 
  Before that match the Kuwait players talked to us and were friendly...

• 
  When they had to play us they forfeited and ignored us and when we tried to get a reason for this they gave us the "no comment"... later on the side, the only thing we were able to get out of them is "it's bigger then us"

• 
  Before Kuwait we played Morocco, they also forfeited 2 matches against us because they only had 3 players, the 4th one was "sick" and left the tourny, a different forth player showed up 2 days later so I believe the other guy was really sick. When I asked one of the Moroccan players if they know why the Kuwait team forfeited he told me that the Kuwait team also asked them not to play us....

• 
  I feel bad about it as I really don't like it when politics mixes with sports, unfortunately this was not the first time and not the last time. There were many occasions were athletes from the golf area (Iran, Iraq etc.) refused to face Israeli athletes in different sports, in pool it's the first time...

• 
  I also feel bad for the French team that lost to Kuwait just before this match and got knocked out of the tournament, it was known that the winner will play us, so why bother with France?

• 
  The cool thing about it all is that we were the second Israeli team, a team that was assembled right there in the last minutes as few teams did not arrive... non of us are pro level, non of us are A level... The Kuwait team would have probably beat us... but instead they sent us to face Great Britain and into the MONEY!!! :grin-square:

• 
  It was much more fun to get my ass kicked by Darren Appleton then by some unknown a-hole from Kuwait...

• 
  The Israeli federation will send an official letter to the WPA about this behavior from Kuwait and I hope that some sanctions will be applied for next events.

Thanks for the support!
Beside that shameful misconduct by the Kuwait team, the WTC was a great event and experience and I hope to be there again next year.