ALMATY, July 1 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan has failed to meet UEFA requirements for infrastructure and finance and its clubs will miss next season's UEFA Cup competition.
'We will miss the current season. On June 25, three Kazakh
soccer clubs were excluded from the draw for UEFA Cup qualifying
matches,' Alexander Keplin, spokesman for Kazakhstan's Football
Union, told Reuters.
'There had been five sets of criteria to meet to win UEFA's
licence. The poor quality of Kazakh soccer pitches and club
budgets which lack transparency were the main stumbling blocks.'
Keplin said the three clubs eliminated from this season's
UEFA Cup were Kairat Almaty, Tobol Kustanai and Irtysh Pavlodar.
The first qualifying round of the competition begins on July 13.
Keplin promised renewed efforts to get Kazakh clubs back in
the 2005-2006 season.
'On July 8, Tobol will face Irtysh already in an upgraded
stadium in Kustanai,' he said. 'The central stadium in (the
financial hub) Almaty is also being rebuilt and modernised.'
Kazakhstan's joining of UEFA as its 52nd member in 2002 was
a source of national pride. Kazakhstan, which had played in the
Asian confederation after independence in 1991, lies in Central
Asia with a large chunk of territory also in Europe.
Given booming oil exports and a fast-growing economy, it had
been expected that modern pitches would start to appear.
Rakhat Alieyv, son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan
Nazarbayev, heads the country's soccer union and sports
observers had expected to see investment in Kazakh football.
