Diego agrees to skip Olympic Games

Brazilian Diego will definitely not be representing his country at the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing. This was confirmed by Werder Bremen on Monday.

After a meeting between club and player, the two parties decided that Diego would stay in Germany to prepare for the coming season.

“Of course I would have liked to do my share in Beijing. That’s a dream to me. Werder prefer not to cooperate however and I respect their arguments. I will be here for the entire preparation and I’m looking forward to next season,” Diego said on Werder’s official website.

Chairman Klaus Allofs added: “At first he was disappointed, but life goes on. The interests of Werder and its fans are at stake. He’s an important player, so we can’t afford to lose him for several weeks.”

Werder claim that the official FIFA rules say nothing about allowing Under-23 players to represent their team at the Olympics.

This goes against the statement FIFA issued last week, in which the world governing body claimed the exact opposite.