{"id":8725,"date":"2026-03-02T15:50:03","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T10:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/03\/02\/england-given-reassurances-over-safety-in-turkey\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T15:50:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T10:20:03","slug":"england-given-reassurances-over-safety-in-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/03\/02\/england-given-reassurances-over-safety-in-turkey\/","title":{"rendered":"England &#8216;given reassurances&#8217; over safety in Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/topics\/cn91vqq4d5wt\">Emma Sanders<\/a>BBC Sport women\u2019s football news reporter<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published23 minutes ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Manager Sarina Wiegman says England have been given reassurances there are no safety concerns about their Women&#x27;s World Cup qualifier against Ukraine being held in Turkey as the conflict in the Middle East widens.<\/p>\n<p>The Lionesses play in Antalya at 17:00 GMT on Tuesday because Ukraine are unable to play in their home country as a result of the <a href=\"\/news\/topics\/c1vw6q14rzqt\">war with Russia<\/a>, which is in its fifth year.<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday <a href=\"\/news\/articles\/cx2dyz6p3weo\">the US attacked Iran<\/a> as part of a joint operation with Israel, sparking retaliatory strikes across the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>The Iranian regime has responded with attacks on US assets and countries in the region with a US military presence, including Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey borders Iran and Iraq and is close to Cyprus, where an <a href=\"\/news\/articles\/cm2r0q310e3o\">Iranian drone crashed into a British RAF base<\/a> on Sunday. Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon have also exchanged strikes.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Yes, we did have reassurances. We are in close contact with the government and the people here that are responsible,&quot; said Wiegman.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We&#x27;re fine here but we&#x27;re keeping an eye on it. We&#x27;re in contact all the time with the responsible authorities.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Of course, you&#x27;re concerned about what&#x27;s happening in the world. When we think, or our government thinks it&#x27;s unsafe, we will go back. At this moment, we don&#x27;t have signals of that.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>England travelled to Turkey last Wednesday for a training camp but it is unclear how many fans will attend the match following the weekend&#x27;s developments, with some supporters and several media outlets already choosing to withdraw.<\/p>\n<p>Wiegman says the fact Ukraine are having to host the match in Turkey because of conflict in their home country following Russia&#x27;s invasion is &quot;really sad&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We have great facilities here and the climate is really good so we can prepare really well. But the reason we&#x27;re here is not nice,&quot; she added. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;You want Ukraine to be able to play in their home country. They had to travel a lot themselves to get here. The things they have in front of them in their country is really horrible. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;We hope this game unites a bit. It&#x27;s a chance for Ukraine to show themselves to the world in another way where hopefully football unites and brings some joy.&quot;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/articles\/c0rjg4gqdkjo\">\n<p>How do Lionesses solve full-back succession problem?<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published1 day ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/articles\/c363j2ygwy8o\">\n<p>The moment I told my mum I wanted to stop football &#8211; and how life changed<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published2 days ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/articles\/c5ykx4nqgv6o\">\n<p>&#x27;I&#x27;m ready&#x27; &#8211; Park bids to show Man Utd form for England<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published4 days ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Stanway &#x27;very close&#x27; to confirming future<\/h2>\n<p>England are in a group with Ukraine, Iceland and Spain, with only the top team qualifying automatically for the 2027 Women&#x27;s World Cup in Brazil.<\/p>\n<p>Midfielder Georgia Stanway hopes England can get off to a winning start this week when they face Ukraine, before hosting Iceland at the City Ground on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Our main task is to qualify as fast as possible but we also understand the process behind it and what it takes to get to a Euros and a World Cup,&quot; said Stanway. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;We know it&#x27;s super difficult. We need to make sure we&#x27;re adapting, evolving and changing our game. We know our opposition are getting better and better.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Stanway has announced she will be leaving Bayern Munich when her contract expires at the end of the summer.<\/p>\n<p>She says she is &quot;very close&quot; to confirming her future, with <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/articles\/cpv7ryppx1vo\">extensive talks with Arsenal ongoing<\/a> over a pre-contract agreement.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;ve absolutely loved my time at Bayern and it has probably been one of the best decisions I&#x27;ve ever made in my life,&quot; said Stanway. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;From the moment I got there, it felt like home. I still love it but I just came to the conclusion that I always want to have good memories at Bayern. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;I didn&#x27;t want to get to the point that I wasn&#x27;t enjoying it or I was a little bit over it. I want to continue to play this season and make as many memories as possible.&quot;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bbc.in\/3FKaVLN\">Head here to get involved<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Related topics<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/england-women\">England Women&#x27;s Football Team<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\">Football<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/womens\">Women&#x27;s Football<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>England &#x27;given reassurances&#x27; over safety in TurkeyImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Sarina Wiegman has led England to three successive major tournament finalsByEmma SandersBBC Sport w&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}