May 21, 2023, 10:48 AM
May 21, 2023, 10:48 AM
The Iraq U20 Soccer Team, who participates in the World Cup in the category in Argentina, denied this Saturday the “risky accusations” about an alleged sexual assault committed at the hotel where his players are staying.
Argentine media released on Friday a police report from La Plata (60km from Buenos Aires) in which the testimony of an employee of the hotel restaurant who denounced that members of the Iraqi delegation “they had touched an intimate part of his body.”
According to the same source, the head of the hotel reception also denounced that some of the 48 members of the Iraqi delegation “They wandered through the corridors and they have arrived at the hotel reception in their underwear, they have intentionally activated the fire alarm system and other unimportant misconduct usual and never seen in the hotel”.
Another employee “added to these acts of vandalism, the fact that some members of the delegation They had mistreated a translator from the area”and assured that an elevator was disabled by “break down from being overweight.”
All these accusations were denied on Saturday in the afternoon by the Iraqi delegation, in a video posted on the social networks of the Iraqi Football Federation.
“Unfortunately, the accusations against the team, referring to a case of sexual harassment, they have launched themselves in a daring way”, reacted the administrative director of the Iraqi U20 team, Nadim Karim.
“I have accompanied the delegation for two yearswe have participated in training (…) in Antalya or in Spain (…) We have never had to face accusations of this type,” he added.
This person in charge accused “the hotel administration” of launching these accusations “in response to our insistence on changing hotels”, since the establishment, according to him, lacks “the most basic needs” such as a sports hall or that it is very far from the training centers.
Next to Uruguay, England and Tunisia, Iraq is framed in group E of the U20 World Cup that brings together 24 teams until June 11.
The tournament was scheduled to be held initially in Indonesiabut the refusal of a provincial government of the Asian country, with a Muslim majority, to welcome Israel, caused FIFA to withdraw the organization of the World Cup and its relocation to Argentina.
