Exclusive: How A Belarus Visa Row Nearly Ended Scotland's World Cup Dream

Government officials had to act to stop Steve Clarke's team forfeiting a crucial qualification match.

Ministers and government officials had to solve a last-minute visa row to keep alive Scotland’s hopes of reaching their first World Cup in 28 years, HuffPost UK can reveal.

Steve Clarke’s team could have been forced to forfeit a crucial qualifying match against Belarus if a solution had not been found.

That would have seen the result being registered as a 3-0 defeat for Scotland, depriving them of three crucial points.

In the end, the game went ahead at Hampden Park in Glasgow last October, Scotland beat Belarus 2-1 and ended up winning their qualifying group by two points.

They will play their first match of this year’s World Cup against Haiti in Boston in the early hours of Sunday morning.

But it can now be revealed that Scotland came close to not qualifying at all because of government sanctions........

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