Ahead of tonight’s World Cup qualifier, Tom Elliott has asked why Australia is playing a war-ravaged country like Syria at all.

Tom said in the past, like during the South African Apartheid era, countries tended to boycott sporting events.

“In the past when you had odious regimes trying to play sport we tended to organise boycotts,” he said.

“So why don’t we care about Syria?”

But Latrobe University senior lecturer in sports economics Liam Lenten, said he wasn’t surprised at FIFA’s stance.

“FIFA has a responsibility to give every country some kind of path to get through to the World Cup,” he said.

Mr Lenten pointed out “inherent differences” in the way different sporting bodies govern.

“FIFA has tended to, in comparison, taken a more ‘hands off’ view in regards to those type of issues.”

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