http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/11/25/...C-Peru-FIFA.php

I could be imagining this but were Bolivia not under threat of being kicked out too? Or teams were refusing to play at the high altitide grounds?

Just over 30 years too late

FIFA passed a law saying matches could not be played at stadiums which were over 2500 metres due to health risks. This meant their stadium in La Paz was banned for full international matches, but FIFA then said it would only be World Cup Qualifiers that would not be allowed to be played there. However it was pointed out that international tournaments like the Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana could still be played there and the risk of players would still be there. FIFA eventually backed down on their ban on the national stadium alledging that it had historic relevance to Bolivian football.

Had anyone fainted or died playing at such a height? I wasn't sure what prompted this law.

Cheers for that. I remember a programme that done a piece on it and had the Bolivian PM playing a 5 a side match up a mountain* IIRC.


* i may have been drinking that night so this may have been an hallucination.

Brasil always seem to struggle in the mountains. But this seems like good old fashioned Latin American politics.

That the Parliament notes the decision of FIFA, the international football governing body, to suspend the Peruvian national football association as of 25 November 2008, removing its right to participate in international tournaments; notes with alarm that this was triggered by excessive political intervention by the Peruvian government, including pressure to elect a national association president of the government’s choice; believes that there are disturbing parallels between this intervention and the pressure being exerted by the UK Government on the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish associations to accept a combined Great Britain Olympic football team, and calls on the UK Government to abandon this stance and allow all football associations on these islands to act without politically-motivated coercion.

An email i received today forwarded from an MSP.

The fact is they have not published anything proving that it has an adverse affect on players health so i don't know how they came up with it

The problems of doing anything - not least playing a 90 minute game of football - at such a high altitude are well documented. Players certainly could suffer ill effects from doing so, but in any case it's giving players used to being at that altitude a massive advantage. Having said that, if they banned high altitude football on those grounds it would open a pandora's box for similar claims about weather etc.

Believe me it does have an effect to play at that altitude, even to walk. There is real tension between Bolivia and the rest of the countries in the region over their national stadium. Put it this way if Scotland were to play every week at an altitude 3 times that of Ben Nevis, then I am pretty sure we would do a whole lot better in European competitions as our players would adapt to it whilst others struggled with the lower barometric pressure, which decreases oxygen absorption.

Anyway on topic I am a bit gutted by this as I watched Peru turn their campaign around against Venezuela in Lima just 2 months ago when they won 1-0 and drew with Argentina later in the week, and they have a few quality players other than just Solano however it is just like a South American country to get mixed up in politics and corruption once more but this time sport is involved as well.

Yeah, I was speaking to said MSP at a dinner a couple of weeks ago and brought this up. He said he would do something about it as he was concerned about the possible FIFA sanctions, as well as the existence of a Scottish national team. The fact that he has it in for Jim Murphy was just an added bonus

As a side note, what does this say about UK Government intervention around the idea of a British National side?

I'm not sure. How?

Might be taking from this something that's not there, but:

See utdtillidie and my previous posts in this thread.
Jim Murphy has been poking around and having meetings with regards to the Team GB stuff. This is quite clearly 'politics' and government getting involved in affairs that should be the sole concern of the 4 individual football authorities ie interfering in the way that FIFA have quite clearly stated that they won't allow.

Unless FIFA have encouraged it, which they have in this case.

edit: the GB case, of course.

what prompted the law was the fact bolivia suddenly developed into a half way decent team.when the rest of s.america was beating them 3-4 nil playing in la paz wasn't a problem

Cusquena from Cusco won the Copa Libertadores about 5 years ago due to their high altitude ground. When I was there as son as I stepped off the plane I found it extremely difficult to breathe, walking up a small hill was a severe effort and I'd need a rest once I got to the top. It took about 3 days to get used to it.