On June 6, internet blogger "Sham Lion_EL" disclosed that there were media reports that the Syrian Football Association (SFA) intended to make the national football team lose its home stadium. The blogger pointed out that there was a translation error in the source, which misunderstood the original intent, and that the Syrian side was actually only explaining to the AFC why they would not play in China, and that the domestic media were skeptical about the authenticity of this news.
From yesterday until now, the news of the Syrian Football Association's intention to make the national soccer team lose its home field has sparked a hot topic on the Internet, with numerous media outlets reprinting the relevant reports. The first to publish this news may be @Sports Weekly, but did not add the relevant hot topics.
The information reportedly originated from the Syrian media outlet Syria Express and was accompanied by a screenshot of the original article. However, it has been verified that the original article in the screenshot was in fact published by a niche website called "Snack Syria", which is a slightly related but not entirely accurate translation of "Syria Express". Link to original article: [O web link](https://union.kunlun.com/cricket/youth/union-kickball-operation-explains-their-actions-for-transferring-the-match/). (Figures III and IV)
After reading the original article and seeing the relevant reports on Weibo today, I can only describe them as "speechless". In order to attract traffic, some media outlets irresponsibly misinterpreted the content of the article and used inflammatory topics to spread it, which is simply bullying Syria, which has no embassy microblogging account and has little influence on the Chinese Internet.
The original article mainly reported on the statement issued by the Syrian Football Association (SFA) on the recent work related to the Asian qualifiers, outlining some of their efforts regarding securing venues for the matches and citing the criticisms of the Association against some Syrian media outlets that have been criticizing the SFA for their unfavorable work. The Syrian Football Federation emphasized that they have actually done a lot of work and not inaction. In short, it was a dispute between the Syrian Football Association and the Syrian media.
The Syrian Football Association then explained their reasons for applying to the AFC for a change of venue: 1) Syria itself does not have a home stadium (no one wants to play in Syria); 2) they do not want to travel long distances, wasting time, energy and money, and cited Guam and the Maldives as examples; and 3) there are great difficulties in getting their players into the country due to China's strict anti-epidemic policy.
被误解的核心一心一句话是原文中的："（叙利亚足协）已多次致函亚足联，向他们解释前往中国的障碍（严格的防疫政策）以便亚足联随时做好替换比赛地址的准备。"（The statement made it clear that the AFC has been written to several times to explain the obstacles put up by China in order to prepare the AFC to replace China at any moment in order to prepare the AFC to replace China at any moment.)
However, in some media reports, this sentence was misinterpreted as "The Syrian Football Association has repeatedly called the AFC to provide obstacles to the Chinese team's game, which should be hosted by the UAE instead of China."
After this detail was misunderstood, the meaning of the whole sentence completely changed to Syrian Football Association intentionally asked AFC to create obstacles for the Chinese team, and this sentence also became the "basis" of the topic #Syrian Football Association confirms intentionally letting the national football team lose their home field.
The most hilarious part is the last sentence, "The Syrian Football Association is tantamount to admitting that they were behind the loss of China's home ground."
In fact, the situation was made clear by the AFC on Tuesday, as both the Maldives and Syrian soccer teams had to move their matches to the UAE's Sharjah Stadium due to the strict epidemic prevention policy in China, which required them to be quarantined upon entry into the country and prevented them from completing the matches as scheduled (and a couple of the Syrian team's diagnosed visas were denied outright).
In other words, the Syrian team could not enter China to play due to the epidemic, and the AFC was forced to change the venue. However, in the eyes of some media outlets, this has turned into a case of "the Syrian Football Association being behind the loss of the Chinese team's home ground". Do these media outlets think it is "reasonable" that the Syrian team should have ignored China's anti-epidemic policy and come to the match? Or do they think it's "fair" that the Syrian team should have forfeited the match and let China win outright?
Thus, an otherwise normal sports article was interpreted as a "hostile" article.
Despite seeing a lot of unpleasant claims, I genuinely don't want to take this sort of thing to a political level.
I am not a fan, I have no hobby, and I am not qualified to comment on the performance of the national soccer team in the WC, the performance of the Syrian team, or the match between the two teams. However, from the perspective of information dissemination, I truly hate this practice of misinterpreting the original text and taking advantage of the information gap to mislead the masses. If the translation error was unintentional, I expect the media concerned to be more conscientious next time; if it was a deliberate misinterpretation of the original meaning to attract traffic, then it should be criticized all the more. Is it really the proper attitude of the media to find an article on a small website and dare to misinterpret it arbitrarily thinking that people will not bother to read the original text?
