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Football-mad Ahmadinejad will not attend World Cup
AFP
TEHRAN
Petroleumworld.com 05 29 06Football-mad President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will not be travelling to Germany to watch Iran's World Cup clashes, his spokesman told AFP Monday.
"No, he will not attend," said government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham, putting an end to speculation that the hardline president may be seeking to head to Germany.
"He plays football and likes the game, but I don't know whether he will get the time to watch the games," the spokesman replied when asked if Ahmadinejad would be watching at home on television.
The news about the possibility of Ahmadinejad supporting the Iranian national team in person at the June 9-July 9 World Cup finals has raised some eyebrows in Germany.
Ahmadinejad sparked worldwide controversy when he suggested the Holocaust was a "myth" and called for the destruction of Israel, prompting calls from several leading German politicians for Iran to be banned from the finals.
In an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine to be published Monday, Ahmadinejad said he had not yet decided whether to travel to Germany and asserted that his decision "depended on many things".
Iran are in Group D with Mexico, Portugal and Angola and have chosen the southern German city of Friedrichshafen as their World Cup base.
AFP 29 1107 GMT 05 06
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