{Denial comes after media quoted football official as saying Somalia is willing to allow the group to join the league.}<\/p>\n
The Somali Football Federation on Thursday denied reports that it invited the al-Qaeda-linked rebel group al-Shabab to take part in the ongoing football league in the east African country.<\/p>\n
The BBC on Monday quoted the country’s football chief Abdi Qani Said Arab as saying that “if the militants like to play, they will be given a chance”.<\/p>\n
According to the report, Arab believes some al-Shabab members attend football matches in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.<\/p>\n
The football association dismissed the report as false.<\/p>\n
“Football has nothing to do with politics. It is really very shameful experience that international media are going to mess something up,\u201d the statement added.<\/p>\n
Al-Shabab, which considers government officials and anyone working for the government as apostate, often carries out suicide attacks and targeted assassination against officials.<\/p>\n
Football is the most popular sport in Somalia, a country of about 10 million people and Al-Shabab fighters, when not in the trenches, often take part in football games in areas under its control.<\/p>\n
Players in al-Shabab-controlled areas are not allowed to wear shorts and are encouraged to wear tracksuits which must reach below the knees.<\/p>\n
The country’s football league, which has attracted 20 foreign players, has been making a strong comeback since the rebel group were pushed out of Mogadishu in 2011.<\/p>\n
Currently eight teams are taking part in the country’s premier league which broadcast its first live match last month.<\/p>\n
Source:Al Jazeera:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Denial comes after media quoted football official as saying Somalia is willing to allow the group to join the league.} The Somali Football Federation on Thursday denied reports that it invited the al-Qaeda-linked rebel group al-Shabab to take part in the ongoing football league in the east African country. The BBC on Monday quoted the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000071494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-22520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":{"id":2000071494,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22520.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22520.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22520.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22520.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22520.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22520.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000071494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22520"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=22520"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=22520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}