China look set to play their remaining matches in the second round of World Cup qualification in Dubai after two of the teams in their group reported Covid-19 infections.
On Monday, the country’s football association announced the news that the outstanding Group A matches, originally to take place in China, would be transferred to the UAE. Members of the Maldives and Syria camps had reportedly returned positive Covid-19 results.
"In view of the recent epidemic infections in the Maldives and Syrian national football teams ... they must be strictly quarantined upon entry and cannot participate in the games as scheduled," the Chinese Football Association said.
"According to recommendations from the AFC [Asian Football Confederation], the Chinese FA agreed that the remaining qualifying matches ... will not be held in Suzhou and will be transferred to Dubai and held there," it added.
China, currently second in the group, are scheduled to resume their campaign against the Maldives on Thursday. They then face the Philippines on June 9 before concluding the second round against group leaders Syria on June 15. Guam, bottom of the standings, make up the group.
Earlier this year, the Asian Football Confederation decided to use centralised hubs for each of the eight groups. The qualifiers have been repeatedly postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
PAKISTAN SQUAD
Abid Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Shan Masood, Azhar Ali (test captain), Babar Azam (T20 captain), Asad Shafiq, Fawad Alam, Haider Ali, Iftikhar Ahmad, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Hafeez, Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Sarfaraz Ahmed (wicketkeeper), Faheem Ashraf, Haris Rauf, Imran Khan, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Hasnain, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Afridi, Sohail Khan, Usman Shinwari, Wahab Riaz, Imad Wasim, Kashif Bhatti, Shadab Khan and Yasir Shah.
