Socceroos coach Graham Arnold has called on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to help ensure the team play their 2026 World Cup qualifiers in venues that are safe.
The Australian team have been drawn in an Asian zone second qualifying stage group with Palestine, Lebanon and Bangladesh.
“We’ve got a pretty interesting group, and we’ll need government support for those decisions where we are playing Palestine and Lebanon, because what is going on at the moment looks quite scary,” Arnold said after his team’s 2-0 friendly win over New Zealand in London on Wednesday morning.
Australia launch their campaign at Melbourne’s AAMI Park against Bangladesh on November 16, but are then due to play Palestine five days later at a venue yet to be decided.
The Algerian federation has claimed they would host Palestine’s matches, but Arnold said he was not convinced that would be the case.
“I don’t understand that,” he said.
“As far as I know, you have to play your qualifiers in the confederation where you play – and that’s not part of Asia. So I don’t think that’s real. Everyone is uncomfortable, staff, players, we are only three weeks away from it. By Friday, I think Palestine have to come up a with a neutral venue, and we have to be careful where that neutral venue is with what’s going on.”
AAP