LONDON Iraqi international footballers were tortured on the orders of Saddam Hussein's son Uday for failing to win crucial matches, a former player told Britain's Sunday Times. Sharar Haydar Mohamad al Hadithi said he had been hit repeatedly on the soles of his feet, dragged on his bare back through a gravel pit, then made to jump into a sewage tank so the wounds would become infected.

The paper said it spoke to the former international at a secret location after he fled Iraq. According to the Sunday Times, he said Radhi Shanishal, then the captain of the national team, was thrashed with an electric flex after Iraq lost a match against Kazakhstan that denied it a place in last year's 1998 World Cup finals in France. Sharar, 31, said he himself had suffered cruel punishments during several periods of detention.

And Iraqi football authorities falsified the dates of birth on players' passports so they could take part in youth tournaments despite being too old, he told the paper. The Sunday Times quoted Abbas Janabi, Uday's former private secretary, describing how he had watched members of the national football team kicking a concrete ball around the grounds of one detention centre after failing to qualify for the 1994 World Cup in the United States. FIFA, football's world governing body, dismissed reports of maltreatment of players after an investigation two years ago, the weekly added.

(AFP)