Israelis were allowed to travel to Qatar to attend football matches from Nov. 21 to Dec. 18, 2022, despite Doha not having diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.
Children stand next to the official countdown clock showing remaining time until the kick-off of the World Cup 2022, in Doha, Qatar, on Nov. 25, 2021 | File photo: AP/Darko Bandic
Israelis who wanted to reserve their tickets for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar didn’t find Israel on the list of countries but were offered to select “Occupied Palestinian territories” as their location instead.
Israelis were allowed to travel to Qatar to attend football matches from Nov. 21 to Dec. 18, 2022, despite Doha not having diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.
However, Israel was noticeably omitted from the FIFA site reservation page, although there is no other way to buy tickets other than through this intermediary.
The incident lasted for several hours, according to Israeli media, and was not resolved until Wednesday morning, when the reservations site stopped working due to overbooking.
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For its part, during this much-awaited sporting competition and under an agreement reached in June with the Jordanian and European aviation authorities to shorten flight times, Israel will open its airspace to international flights to and from Qatar for the duration of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
This way European and American football fans on their way to Qatar will be able to fly over the Jewish state, Cyprus and Jordan, on the way there and back.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.