Macau (MNA) – The Macau football national team players issued an open letter on Wednesday asking the international football organising body FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for the cancelled match with Sri Lanka to be rescheduled.

On Monday the AFC stated that this match – the second leg of a playoff counting for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and AFC Asian Cup 2023 Preliminary Joint Qualification Round and scheduled for June 11 – was officially canceled after the Macau Football Association (MFA) did not allow the team to travel to Sri Lanka for the match, citing security concerns.

In the open letter published today in the official Facebook account of the Macau national team captain, Nicholas Torrão, the player say to be ‘totally devastated’ with the cancellation of the second match against Sri Lanka due to the refusal of our MFA.

The team had won the first match on June 6 in a game played in Zhuhai, putting the local team in the historical position to advance for the first time to the group stage of a Word Cup Asian qualification round.

‘Football is made of rules and regulations, which we understand, but above all, football is its players […] Being from a country which has a low FIFA Ranking, these matches are a lifetime opportunity to leave our mark on football history for our country and above all for our citizens and fans,’ the letter stated.

The letter goes on to indicate that football in Asia has grown ‘rapidly’ due to work from the AFC, with lower ranking teams having more opportunities to compete in a higher level.

‘Macau was actually 1st runner up of the AFC Solidarity Cup which happened in Malaysia in 2016. In 2018 for the first time we had a Macau club represented in the AFC Cup group stage which ended the participation with four wins in six games,” the letter added.

‘This shows how hard the players are working and want to be integrated in the group of Asian countries developing in football’

The players then requested FIFA and AFC to reschedule the game and allow the Macau national team players to ‘fight for their chance on the field’

‘Football is far too big and too beautiful to be played in the office. The field is where is should be played between the most valuable assets that it has, the players!’ the letter signed by Torrão in representation of the team concludes.

Before the final decision by the MFA, a joint statement signed by 24 Macau senior national team players – including Torrão – 11 U-23 players and 13 U-18 players considered the possibility that if the MFA did not allowed the team to travel for the game place they would not represent the local colors again.

The decision by the MFA could also incur in a hefty fine by FIFA and a possible ban for the local national team or teams playing in the local championships to take part in official FIFA or AFC competitions, with the consequences possibly milder now that the game was cancelled.