Venezuela retains Bolivian national football team after South American qualifiers defeat

Published on 07/06/2025 - 16:50 GMT+2

After their 2-0 conclusion against Venezuela successful nan South American qualifiers for nan 2026 World Cup, nan Bolivian nationalist squad has faced a caller setback: nan Venezuelan authorities person prevented their formation from leaving Maturin airport, without offering clear explanations.

The Bolivian delegation, which claims it had each nan basal archiving and permits to return to its country, was forced to return to its edifice successful nan mediate of nan nighttime aft hours of waiting without authorisation to time off Venezuela.

The method head of nan Venezuelan team, Óscar Villegas, said that nan business took them by surprise, arsenic they had antecedently asked a Bolivian authorities curate to coordinate pinch nan Venezuelan authorities of Nicolás Maduro to facilitate their departure.

Harold Howard, successful complaint of information and logistics for nan team, said of "sabotage" by nan Venezuelan regime, explaining that they were informed of an alleged problem pinch "air traffic" arsenic nan logic for nan hold-up, contempt nan truth that location were only 2 planes landing astatine nan time.

Outrage successful Bolivia

The incident has generated outrage successful nan Bolivian sporting and governmental community, which has called connected nan nationalist authorities to intervene and request answers from nan Venezuelan government.

The business has besides affected nan readying of nan Bolivian team, which was scheduled to time off for La Paz astatine astir 5:00 (local time) and train that day up of Tuesday's lucifer pinch Chile successful El Alto.

This section adds to a bid of obstacles and problems that, according to complaints, Maduro's authorities has imposed connected overseas delegations, displaying a deficiency of reliability and transparency successful nan curen of visiting teams.