Bassam playing for the Qatari under-23 team in January 2018
2019 AFC Asian Cup
Bassam was included in Félix Sánchez Bas' Qatari squad for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup in the United Arab Emirates.[7] He made his first international goal on 9 January 2019 against Lebanon. On 22 January, he scored his second international and the winning goal for Qatar against his country of origin, Iraq, which helped his team reach the quarter-finals of the competition.[8][9] His team would eventually conquer the Asian title for the first time.
Eligibility dispute
On 30 January 2019, soon after the 2019 Asian Cup semi-final tie between the UAE and Qatar, which Qatar won 4–0, the UAE Football Association lodged a formal appeal to the on the fact that Bassam did not qualify to play for Qatar on residency grounds of the Article 7 of the FIFA statutes, which states a player's eligibility to play for a representative team if he has "lived continuously for at least five years after reaching the age of 18 on the territory of the relevant association".[10] It was claimed that Bassam had not lived continuously in Qatar for at least five years over the age of 18.[11] On 1 February 2019, the AFC Disciplinary and Ethics Committee dismissed the protest lodged by the United Arab Emirates Football Association.[12][13]
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