NY Time : U.S. Soccer Match May Be Moved From Honduras

U.S. Soccer Match May Be Moved From Honduras

By JERÉ LONGMAN

Published:=2 0September 23, 2009

With political chaos continuing in Honduras, the possibility exists that the United States’ crucial World Cup qualifying match, scheduled there on Oct. 10, will be moved to another country.

Honduras’s ousted presid ent, Manuel Zelaya, has furtively returned to Tegucigalpa, the capital, and entered the Brazilian Embassy there. The crisis has led to the closing of all Honduran airports, a curfew and roadblocks. The only way into the country at this point is by land through El Salvador.

The calamity has raised doubts about whether it will be safe for the American national soccer team to play its coming match in San Pedro Sula, Honduras’s industrial center and second largest city. A final decision will be made by FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, and by officials of Concacaf, the North American, Central American and Caribbean region in which the United States and Honduras play.

“We are obviously monitoring the situation closely and are in discussions with the appropriate officials with Concacaf and FIFA, who will determine if the location of the match will be moved outside of Honduras,” Neil Buethe, a spokesman for the United States Soccer Federation, said Wednesday in a telephone interview.

If the game is moved, FIFA’s first option would most likely be another nearby nation in Central America, perhaps Guatemala. There is also the possibility of moving the game to a city in the United States while still considering it a home game and gate for the Honduran soccer federation.< /div>

Honduras enjoyed widespread support in Chicago in June for a qualifying match against the Americans. But that option seems less likely now than another Central American nation.

There is precedence for moving a qualifying match. In December 1996, the Americans played Guatemala in El Salvador, switching to a neutral site after a stadium stampede two months earlier in Guatemala City led to 84 deaths.

Zelaya was deposed in Honduras on June 28 over concerns by the military, the courts and the legislature that he planned to extend his presidential term beyond the time allowed by the country’s Constitution.

With two qualifying matches remaining, the United States (5-2-1) sits atop the six-team Concacaf table with 16 points. Honduras (4-3-1) is third with 13 points. The top three teams in the group will automatically qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, while the fourth-place team will enter a playoff against the fifth-place team from South America.

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