Shock: Saudi Soccer Team Refuses to Observe Moment of Silence for Terror Victims

The Saudi Arabian soccer team caused a minor diplomatic incident in Australia on Thursday when its members appeared to ignore a brief silence held in honor of the victims of the radical Islamist terrorist attack on London Bridge last weekend.

Prior to Thursday’s World Cup qualifying match, players and fans were asked to take a minute’s silence out of respect for the two Australians who were killed in the terrorist attacks in London on Saturday.

But as the Australian squad lined up for the hallowed observation, the Saudi team continued warming up, ignoring completely what was occurring around them.

“That was a disgraceful lack of respect,” said Australian Labour MP Anthony Albanese on Australia’s Nine TV network. “There is no excuse here. This isn’t about culture, this is about a lack of respect. I thought it was disgraceful.”

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On Friday the Saudi Arabian soccer federation issued an apology in response to the uproar. “The players did not intend any disrespect to the memories of the victims or to cause upset to their families, friends or any individual affected by the atrocity,” the organization said in an official statement.

“The Saudi Arabian Football Federation condemns all acts of terrorism and extremism and extends its sincerest condolences to the families of all the victims and to the government and people of the United Kingdom.”

The controversial incident is a startling though apt metaphor for Saudi Arabia’s uncomfortably close connection to radical Islamic terrorism. Only days before the U.K. election, news broke that the results of a government investigation into foreign terror funding might not be published. Reports indicate that the investigation focused on Saudi Arabia.

“We do need to have some difficult conversations, starting with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that have funded and fueled extremist ideology,” said Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

“Theresa May talks of the need to have some difficult and sometimes embarrassing conversations,” wrote Liberal Democrat party leader Tim Farron. “That should include exposing and rooting out the source funding of terror, even it means difficult and embarrassing conversations with those like Saudi Arabia that the government claims are our allies.”

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Only days after the radical Islamist terrorist attack in Manchester in May, a British Muslim woman participating in the current affairs talk show “Question Time” directly called out the Saudis for their role in financing radical Islam.

“I myself am a Muslim. I am a British Muslim and I am very proud of my heritage, but I am also a realist and there is an elephant in the room here, and, unfortunately, it is very unfortunate, there is an issue in regards to radicalization and extremism that does exist within our community,” the woman said.

“We do have an issue within our mosques, within our religious institutions,” she continued. “We have children being taught the Wahhabi interpretation of the Quran, we have Saudi-trained clerics coming in and speaking to children as young as seven,” she said.

The Saudi royal family ascribe to the strict fundamentalist sect of Wahhabism, founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab in the 18th century, and are the largest financiers of Salafism — ultra-fundamentalist interpretations of Sunni Islam — in the world.

But in addition to financing a radical, fundamentalist interpretation of Sunni Islam that fuels Islamist extremism the world over, some Saudis also at times directly finance Islamist terrorist groups such as ISIS, especially when it suits their geopolitical aims against Shiite Iran.

Indeed, a U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks in 2009 expressed officials’ concern that “donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.”

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“While the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) takes seriously the threat of terrorism within Saudi Arabia, it has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority,” the cable stated.

In one of the emails leaked from Hillary Clinton’s private email server, also published by WikiLeaks, Clinton confidant John Podesta explicitly addresses the highly problematic terror funding by Saudi Arabia.

“We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region,” Podesta wrote.