The International Paralympic Committee said the team did not appear for a Friday match against the United States, and would also miss a match on Saturday against Israel.
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Seven members of the goalball squad have not arrived in Rio, reportedly because of issues arranging transport from their European training camp.
“It’s an interesting account they have delivered to us”, IPC spokesman Craig Spence told the BBC.
Israel’s goalball team drew its first match 1-1 with Japan, its goal scored by Umm al-Fahm resident and team captain Ilham Mahamid, Haaretz reports.
The Algerians did not show up for opening matches against the U.S. team on Friday or Israel on Saturday, leading to accusations in the Israeli media of a boycott by the Muslim majority country.
Spence said Algerian officials “claim they suffered multiple delays, cancelled flights and missed connections” attempting to board a flight September 5 from Warsaw, Poland en route to Rio de Janeiro.
Spence tells Around the Rings they’ve seen no evidence of flight cancellations of any of the major hubs in Europe and that the team claims they tried to go from Poland to Algeria and then over to Rio.
“Fingers crossed they can manage to travel from the (Athletes’) Village to the goalball venue in less than six days”, Spence said.
Commentators in Israel have been quick to suggest the team’s no-show is a politically motivated boycott of the country. “It has no right to decide whom it competes against – this is a sporting principle”.
“It is a great shame that politics has also seeped into the Paralympics, ” the head of the Israeli Paralympic Committee, Danny Ben-Abu, had been quoted as saying.
“If, as many people believe, this is a political protest, we can take some form of action against them”, Craig Spence says.
“It could be a slap on the wrist, or we could remove the goalball team from the tournament altogether”, he said.
An Algerian women’s goalball team could be expelled from the Paralympics for failing to show up for two matches.
In the meantime, both the US and Israel have been awarded a 10-0 win and three points each for the unplayed matches.
Goalball has continued as schedule without the Algerian team.
Fahmy forfeited the match against Christianne Legentil in what some Israeli media said was a maneuver to avoid facing Israeli athlete Gili Cohen in the next round. Earlier this year at the Olympics, the Lebanese team refused to share a bus with the Israeli team to the Game’s opening ceremony and Egyptian judoka Islam El Shehaby refused to shake hands with Israel’s Ori Sasson.
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Kelfat said the team had now arrived in Rio after a travel snarlup caused by a missed connection in Rome on September 5.
