Latvia Denies Visa To Kazakhstan's National Hockey Team Coach With Belarusian Passport

He has been dismissed.

Latvia has refused to grant a visa to the head coach of Kazakhstan's ice hockey team, Andrei Skabelka, because he's Belarusian. Therefore the team was forced to change the coach shortly before the World Championship, head of the organizing committee of the event Edgars Buntsis told Rus.lsm.lv.

Andrei Skabelka was the head coach of Kazakhstan's national team until April 14. This season he also supervised the national team's base club, Barys Nursultan, in the Russian Open Championship.

On April 14, the Kazakhstan Hockey Federation announced Galym Mambetaliyev, who had already led the national team in 2018, as the head coach instead of Skabelka.

The decision came after the organisers of the Hockey World Championship, to be held in Riga in May, refused to allow citizens of Russia and Belarus to participate - they will not be granted Latvian visas to enter the country.

- Two other members of the Kazakhstani coaching staff and support staff were denied visas, the newspaper said.

Incidentally, a former vice president of the Kazakhstan Hockey Federation, Vladimir Korsunsky, in an interview with the Trybuna, explained Skabelka's dismissal not only by the visa problems but also by the fact that he "had lost the confidence of the federation's management and that a replacement had been found for him".

"Moreover, they still can't forgive Skabelka for his failure to qualify for the 2022 Olympics, when Kazakhstan lost to Poland in Nur-Sultan (in February 2020 with a score of 2-3)," said the former official.