Nordic football associations: "We were hoping that FIFA would react more strongly."

After the temporary arrest of two journalists from Norway in the World Cup host country Qatar, five northern European football associations have called on FIFA to take action. In a joint letter, the associations from Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Finland and the Faroe Islands pointed out that the world football association had underlined in a reply to a previous letter that compliance with the freedom of the press was of central importance to the World Cup organizers may be. These and other promises "sound hollow when the reality is that journalists are arrested in Qatar," they now criticized.

The news of the arrest said they were appalled, the letter signed by leading association officials and addressed to FIFA Secretary General Fatma Samoura.

It goes without saying that this development is unacceptable.

It was trusted that FIFA would do its utmost to keep its promise to respect universal human rights.

Finland's football president Ari Lahti told Norwegian broadcaster NRK: "We were hoping that FIFA would react more."

"Hollow" promises

Two NRK journalists were detained in Qatar by security forces for over 30 hours. In addition, footage that they had taken in a migrant labor camp was deleted, the Norwegian authorities announced on Wednesday. Qatar's government said the two were taken into custody Monday morning for trespassing on private property and filming there. The arrest was made after a complaint from the property owner. The two were released without charge after the legal proceedings were completed.

The Qatar Embassy in Berlin announced on Friday that the authorities consider the event to be a “very regrettable and avoidable incident”.

“On the one hand, trespassing is a violation of the law.

The Norwegian crew was fully aware of this before entering the private property without prior permission, "Ambassador Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Saud Al-Thani was quoted as saying in the press release:" On the other hand, it subsequently turned out that the camera team, if previously agreed with the owner, was probably the Filming permission would have received. "