Too High to Play Soccer?

I heard a saying once about soccer (futbol): "The ball is round, the game lasts 90 minutes, and the rest is undetermined." The rules aren't quite that simple, but compared to U.S. football (which, according to the untrained observer, involves the players holding an endless series of meetings interrupted by short periods of occasional play), they are quite clean.

This week Bolivia is at the center of a heated debate over a new rule that international soccer officials are seeking to impose – a limit on the elevation at which teams will be allowed to compete. This week the International Football Federation (FIFA) announced a new regulation that would prohibit international soccer matches from taking place above 2,500 meters (8,200 feet). The home teams in La Paz play at 3,600 meters (11,800 feet).

Visiting players to Las Paz have long complained about play at high altitude. And let's be honest, not every international airport offers oxygen to arriving passengers (free by the way). I tried going running once on a visit to La Paz. Big mistake, really, big mistake. On the other hand, the altitude does give a good margarita an extra kick if you can find one.

The dispute over how high international soccer can be played is the lead story in most all the morning papers here, easily replacing more mundane matters such as President Morales' battle with the Supreme Court and five of the country's regional governors; the efforts to write a new constitution; and Hugo Chavez de-licensing a TV station that backed the coup against him.

This is after all 'futbol' we are talking about.

President Morales took up the cause immediately. "We cannot allow discrimination in soccer, we cannot allow... exclusion in the world of sport," Morales said after an emergency meeting with his cabinet and soccer chiefs. He pledged to send a diplomatic delegation to Switzerland (FIFA's headquarters, which we will presume is in the country's lowlands) to appeal the rule. Evo has finally found an issue that rises above ideological squabbles and unifies the nation, albeit one that involves grown men running around a field after a round ball. But you take national unty where you can find it.

The politics of the high altitude ruling also goes well beyond Morales. The FIFA ruling may reactivate a 1996 commission created to respond to just such a threat, a member of which is former Presdent Carlos Mesa. If he rises to defend and protect the nation's soccer rights, the historian-turned-President may be remembered for little else.

International relations are also at stake. Bolivian press reports suggest that it was Brazil that pushed the new reuling behind the scenes. Players who train at the glorious sea levels of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janiero are not so keen to play in stadiums two miles high. If you thought negotiations over gas and oil prices brought tension to the two neighboring nations, just watch this.

Ecuador, which likes to fight its international competitors at 2,800 meters (9,200 feet). joined the fray as well. ""We'll defend to the death our right to play football at altitudes above 2,500 meters, and the right to play in Quito," one Ecuadoran soccer official told the local media. "As far as I can remember, no one's ever died during a soccer match at high altitude," said another.

Bolivia and others have pointed out that no rules exist limiting how hot or cold a place can be for playing the sport. Granted it might be hard for some players to breath at elevations that rival the peak of Mt. Whitney, but are international 'futbol' players really less macho than those guys who play U.S. football in Detroit in December. I am not really a sports guy but if given the choice between running around in pleasant temperatures at 11,000 feet versus having 300 pound men trying to whack me hard in subzero snows, I am pretty clear on which I'd pick.

We will do our best to keep you posted on this story as it develops.