FIFA bans high-altitude matches without acclimatisation (no soccer matches 9,022 ft above sea level)

AFP ^ | 12/15/07 | Shigemi Sato

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FIFA bans high-altitude matches without acclimatisation

by Shigemi Sato

Sat Dec 15, 8:51 AM ET

Football's governing body FIFA on Saturday banned all matches it sanctions at an altitude of more than 2,750 metres (9,022 feet) "without acclimatisation", relaxing its earlier limit.

It also set up a 40-million-dollar referee training project and increased from 10 to 15 percent the share of FIFA's subsidies that must be spent by each national association to promote the women's game.

The decisions were made by the body's executive committee, which met on the sidelines of the Club World Cup, FIFA president Sepp Blatter said.

The committee also raised objections to proposals for matches to kick off at noon during next year's Beijing Olympics, citing the summertime temperature of up to 40 degrees (104 degrees F) in the Chinese capital, he added.

In May, FIFA originally slapped an unconditional ban on matches at 2,500 metres or higher after its medical committee advised that playing at such a height was neither healthy nor fair.

It also cited home-field advantage of high-altitude teams over visiting teams from lower altitudes.

After provoking objections from Latin American countries, the limit was relaxed to 3,000 metres in June but still affected some venues in the middle of World Cup qualifying matches.

Blatter said the next World Cup qualifying round in South America won't be held until June next year.

"Until then, we will have time to work out the exact application of this decision," he told a news conference.

However, he added: "Concerning FIFA international competitions, in the international calendar there is not so much time to acclimatise (before matches)."

High-altitude cities include Bogota in Colombia at 2,640 metres, Quito in Ecuador at 2,800 metres and La Paz in Bolivia at 3,577 metres.

Of the financial aid to referees, 35 million dollars will be "directly invested in the grass-roots programme" to educate referees at the level of national football associations, Blatter said.

The rest will be used to train referees for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa and promote professional refereeing "at the highest level", he said.

"The future of our game is intrinsically linked with the quality of refereeing," Blatter added.

FIFA allocates 250,000 dollars to each national association and 2.5 million dollars to continental confederations every year.

Now each national association must spend 15 percent of the subsidies on promoting the women's game.

"Our sport has been, and still is, sport for men and boys. I'd say it's a macho sport," Blatter said. "But in the past 15 years, women's sport has remarkably developed in all continents. Even in Iran and Saudi Arabia, women's football is in."

Blatter said FIFA has been helping women's football have more access to sponsorships since this year when the women's World Cup was held in China.

Noting that the first women's international tournament was held only in 1989 and the first World Cup two years later, he said: "Now (women's) football is all around us. So we try to go faster than men's football but it's not easy."