The lousy journalism of Ben Hubbard: he defames Syrian football players: would he say that about Saudi football players?

"The team, which is closely related to Mr. Assad, is still in the running to qualify for the 2018 World Cup."  What does this mean? How are the football players close to Mr. Assad?  Does he train the team and supervise their training? Or is he accusing the team members of dropping barrel bombs?    This is the trend in US journalism: you can get away saying the most absurd and ridiculous thing about a country if the regime of that country is not an ally of the US.