TWO national futsal players Jack Wetney and James Egeta will not be part of the final Kurukuru squad for the 2021 FIFA Futsal World Cup in Lithuania.
The Solomon Islands Football Federation (SIFF) made the confirmation on Monday.
The duo was named for the national futsal team. However, due to the failure to acquire travel exemption from the Australian Government due to the Corona Virus restrictions; they will not make it with the rest of the team for the World Cup.
“Our two Australian based futsal players Jack Wetney and James Egeta will not be part of the Kurukuru squad for the FIFA Futsal World Cup.
“This is due to strict Covid-19 restrictions imposed by the Australian Government to travel out of Australia and return.
“There is very short time for them to get the exemption to travel out of Australia so the Kurukuru team management and coaches have decided to send 16 travelling players based on the 17 players that are currently in camp at the moment
“Out of the 16 player, it is FIFA’s requirement that at least three goal keepers are included in a team, so looking at the current number of players, unfortunately one of the players will on the non-travelling list,” according to reports from SIFF.
The official announcement of the Kurukuru World Cup squad will be made on tomorrow, Wednesday 28 July 2021.
Kurukuru currently is preparing for their next camp in Poland, Europe.
The team’s proposed training camp in Australia was cancelled as the team’s exemption to enter Australia was not granted by the Queensland State Government due to the current Covid-19 situation in Australia.
Kurukuru’s next training camp is confirmed to be in Poland starting next month before the team jets off to Croatia for a warm-up tournament ahead of the FIFA Futsal World Cup Lithuania 2021 in September.
The team is in camp at the Pacific Casino hotel which will end today.
They are scheduled to fly out of the country on Friday, July 30th, via Brisbane, Dubai, en route to Warsaw, Poland.
By CARLOS ARUAFU
Newsroom, Honiara
