WHEN LEBANON BEAT OFF A BID FROM China to host the 2000 Asian Cup it appeared to represent a watershed for a nation brought to its knees by a long and bloody civil war. Now, recent events have reopened some old and painful wounds.

Israel’s bombardment of Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon has led to the country withdrawing from the qualifying competition for next year’s Asian Cup, due to be held in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia. And for football in a country that was beginning to look to the future with justified optimism, it could prove to be a terminal blow. Rahif Alameh, the general secretary of the Lebanese Football Association, said in a letter to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) that they were unable to fulfil their qualifying fixtures “due to the tragic circumstances in our country”.

There was no other option for a nation that does not even know where the majority of its national side are because of the chaos and, after a brief meeting, their request was formally accepted by the AFC’s competitions committee in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.

“A number of players actually live in the areas which have been worst hit by the bombing,” Clare Kenny, the communications director for the AFC, said. “The main problem for the Lebanese FA at the moment is locating the players, many of whom have been forced to leave their homes because of the situation. It’s also proving very difficult for us to maintain contact as their Beirut offices are in an area close to where the bombing is taking place. We had hoped to move the qualifying matches to neighbouring countries such as Jordan but the massive disruption to the transport and communications infrastructure has made this impossible.”

Lebanon, who are ranked No 112 in the Fifa rankings, had opened their qualifying campaign for the tournament with a promising 1-1 draw at home to Kuwait in February and had been due to play Bahrain away on August 16 before hosting the return in Beirut on September 6. The side were also due to face Australia in the biggest matches in their history in November.

“It’s a huge blow,” Kenny said. “After so many years out of international football, Lebanon had begun to show a real improvement. The prospect of the two matches against Australia had really caught the public imagination and would have raised the profile of the sport still further. In the six years since the Asia Cup the country’s national side and national league had both made big strides.”

A measure of their development domestically could be seen in the progress of Nejmeh, the Beirut club, to last season’s AFC Cup final, Asia’s equivalent of the Uefa Cup.

This latest episode, however, represents another sad chapter in the country’s troubled history. During the civil war between 1975 and 1990, only two national championships and Lebanese Cups were contested and despite becoming a member of Fifa in 1935 it took a further 59 years for Lebanon to complete a World Cup qualifying campaign.

Even the Asia Cup six years ago was beset by problems when, in a chilling precursor of last month’s events, Hezbollah kidnapped three Israeli soldiers a week before the tournament began. On that occasion, Israel did not retaliate and the cup kicked off as planned in Beirut’s Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium.

The 57,000-capacity arena, which was named after the country’s former president and rebuilt after Israeli bombs destroyed it in 1982, appeared to signal a shift in the country’s fortunes. Now it seems the stadium, like the country itself, faces another spell in the international sporting wilderness.

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