The head of the Iraq Football Association (IFA), Abdul Khaleq Masoud, has praised the efforts made by Qatar Football Association (QFA) under the leadership of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa bin Ahmed al-Thani, which resulted in the FIFA decision to lift the ban on holding official matches in Basra, Karbala and Erbil.

The QFA received a message from its Iraqi counterpart thanking and appreciating the excellent support extended by the Qatari side to the Iraqi football.
The message highlighted the important role of Qatar in this FIFA decision by supporting the lift of the ban and backing IFA and its national teams.
Earlier in Bogota, FIFA President Gianni Infantino said: “We are allowing international matches to be staged in the cities of Erbil, Basra and Karbala,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino told reporters after a meeting of the FIFA Council in Bogota.
The three cities had been allowed to organise friendlies in the past year provided the security situation was “stable”.
Iraq will host Qatar and Syria for a friendly tournament starting on March 21 in Basra.
FIFA said it could not “yet” agree to a request from the Iraqi authorities to organise matches in the capital Baghdad, but Infantino promised that the city’s application would continue to be studied.
The three cities selected are among the more secure in Iraq. 
Basra and Karbala both lie south of Baghdad, far from the battlefields north and west of the capital where the security forces fought the Islamic State group from 2014 to 2017.
Erbil is the capital of the country’s autonomous Kurdish region.
The Iraq Football Association welcomed FIFA’s decision but vowed to “spare no effort for games to be played in stadiums in other provinces, including Baghdad”.
“This decision puts our sport back on the rails,” it said.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who declared victory over IS in December, said the lifting of the FIFA ban was the “fruit of stability in terms of security and of the successes achieved by Iraq.”
For years, Iraq has been busily building stadiums and lobbying stars and the sport’s governing bodies for a return to the international fold.
The first home competitive games could come as early as next month as two Iraqi clubs have fixtures in the AFC Cup which were postponed pending FIFA’s decision.

Qatar Football Association President Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa bin Ahmed al-Thani