by Syria has released a statement after it shot down a Turkish jet, claiming the incident occurred for ‘purely footballing reasons’.
The explanation was accepted unanimously by the UN, who were unable to find a flaw in the argument.
Turkey had claimed that their fighter plane was in Turkey’s own airspace at the time of the incident, but had accepted that it might have wondered off-side a few minutes before-hand.
While the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had initially reacted with fury, he was greatly relieved to learn it was all down to footballing.
“Obviously, it’s a big ask to ignore military action in your own back yard”, said Erdogan.
“Especially against a side that’s been struggling at home. But we’ve had so much support from fans who want to see Assad get a hiding, I think we’ll learn from this, get some foreign players in and come back stronger.”
Syria aggression
Sepp Blatter welcomed the role of football in settling international incidents, and promised to look again at line-in-the sand technology.
“Syria had the most territory, and it’s very hard to get through to them”, said Blatter.
“But at the end of the day, it’s footballing that’s the winner. As I said to the King of Qatar just the other day on his yacht, there’s nothing like football to gloss over corruption, brutal human rights abuses and racist, far-right thuggery.”
