Latest in Tag: Football Highlight
Latest in Tag: Football
Global football’s backslapping, backstabbing backroom deal-making politics
By James M. Dorsey Presidential elections and tournament hosting in the world of football appear to be seldom won on the merits of a candidate or bidder’s proposition. Instead, the outcome of polls and bids are frequently the result of backslapping, backstabbing backroom politicking between global football managers and political leaders. World football is about …
Israel chides club for racism in bid to fend off FIFA suspension
By James M. Dorsey Israel’s Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) has demanded that notoriously racist club, Beitar Jerusalem, the bad boy of Israeli football, retract recent statements that it would maintain its policy of not hiring Palestinian players because of opposition by the team’s militant, racist fan base. The demand comes as Israel is fighting …
Egyptian death sentence for football fans puts president’s iron grip to the test
By James M. Dorsey Egyptian-general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s iron grip on dissent is likely to be put to the test with the sentencing to death of 11 football fans for involvement in a politically loaded football brawl three years ago that left 74 militant supporters of storied Cairo club Al-Ahly SC dead. The brawl and …
11 sentenced to death in Port Said Massacre trial
Court refers sentences for Grand Mufti’s ratification, final verdict 30 May
Zamalek fans referred to state security prosecution over ‘joining terrorist entity’
Five Zamalek SC supporters to stand before prosecution on 24 April
Iranian Arab football pitch emerges as flashpoint in Saudi-Iranian proxy war
By James M. Dorsey A football pitch in the Iranian city of Ahvaz, home to Iran’s Arab minority, has emerged as a flashpoint of anti-government protest, at a time of rising Arab-Iranian tensions over the status of Shi’a Muslim minorities in the Arab world, the crisis in Yemen, and the outlines of a multilateral agreement …
Contours of future Israeli-Palestinian battles emerge on the football pitch
By James M. Dorsey Legal and diplomatic battles in United Nations organisations and international sport associations involving charges of war crimes and efforts to suspend membership of one or the other are likely to shape future Israeli-Palestinian relations in the wake of last month’s electoral victory by Benjamin Netanyahu. The contours of the coming battles …
UWK leader still not released: Lawyer
As Egyptian football league continues, Ultras groups still face crackdown by government
Notes from America: Three shots of tee
By Ahmed Tharwat In sports, as in life, as you grow older, the game gets slower and the ball gets smaller (pun intended). For me, I moved from playing football to tennis, and now to the game of golf. As a kid growing up in Egypt, I had never had the chance to play this elusive …
Football riots reflect long-standing discontent in Iran’s predominantly Arab Khuzestan
By James M. Dorsey Long-simmering discontent in Ahwaz, the football-crazy, predominantly ethnic Arab capital of Iran’s Khuzestan province that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein unsuccessfully tried to exploit when he launched the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, exploded on the pitch earlier this month during an Asian championship League qualifier between the city’s state-owned Foolad FC and …
Attempts to ban Egyptian militant football fan group gather momentum
By James M. Dorsey An Egyptian prosecutor has set the stage for the banning of a group of hard-core, militant football fans by charging them with accepting money and explosives from the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood to stage last month’s Cairo football riot in which 22 people were killed. The Prosecutor General, Hisham Barakat, said the …
Air Defence Stadium trial to start 18 April
Incident left 20 hardcore Zamalek UWK fans dead
Ultras members accused of killing 22 football fans: Prosecution
Muslim Brotherhood used “tight relations” with Ultras White Knights to commit violence, says –Prosecutor General
Blatter’s call on Iran to allow women into stadia reeks of opportunism
By James M. Dorsey Campaigning for re-election, world football body FIFA president Sepp Blatter seems never to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. In an article in a FIFA magazine, Blatter commemorated International Women’s Day by calling on Iran to lift its ban on women attending male sports events in stadia. In doing so, …
Football fields: A way station en route to the Islamic State
By James M. Dorsey One thing the biographies of Jihadi John, the Islamic State’s executioner of foreign hostages, and several of his European associates have in common is their passion for football and their dashed hopes of becoming professional players. They all belonged to amateur teams or bonded in part by playing football together. Like …
Arsenal gains millions of dollars in profits
Arsenal investments in its players is considered the major means by which the club achieves profits, keeping it from falling into debts, unlike many other English League clubs.
Legend star Ronaldo returns to stadiums
Ronaldo announced to Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan and Inter-Milan that to play a football match, you have to match fitness criteria.
Football racism highlights Europe’s struggle with transition and entrenched racism
By James M. Dorsey Recent football-related racism highlights European nations’ tortured transition from ethnically relatively homogeneous to multicultural immigration societies amid a resurgence of entrenched racial, including anti-Semitic, attitudes that flourish in times of economic crisis and are not limited to Muslim communities. Fans across Europe have lined up on both sides of the racism …
Whose lives matter in current day Egypt?
By Semanur Karaman On 9 February, in response to the deadly police violence that left 40 football fans killed and dozens murdered in Cairo, Shadi Zalat compared the price of a ticket to the price of life. Unfortunately, in present-day Egypt, the rhetoric behind the comparison is a saddening one as lives of ordinary civilians …
Football deaths renew spotlight on Egypt’s notorious security forces
By James M. Dorsey A stampede at a Cairo stadium earlier this month, much like a politically-loaded football brawl in the Suez Canal city of Port Said three years ago, is shining a spotlight on Egypt’s unreformed, unabashedly violent, and politically powerful police and security forces amid confusion over what precisely happened and how many …
Egyptian football league to resume on 19 February
The league was postponed indefinitely after the Air Defence Stadium drama
Black February: A new episode of the history of football stadium tragedies
Sunday’s tragedy at Air Defence Stadium is second disaster for Zamalek fans after 1974, with Port Said massacre worst locally
When a night out for football in Egypt turned dark
Having friends over in Egypt, my home for over a year and a half now, is always both a great joy and bit of a hassle. What should and shouldn’t I show them to give them the best holiday and the best impression of Egypt? However, seven Dutch university friends proved to be an easy …
Football deaths raise stakes for Egypt’s general-turned-president Al-Sisi
By James M. Dorsey The death of at least 40 militants, highly politicised, and street battle-hardened Egyptian football fans in clashes with security forces raises the stakes for General-turned-President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s efforts to suppress political dissent. The incident is one of the worst in Egyptian sporting history and the latest in a number of …
Air Defence Stadium ‘massacre’ sparks powerful reactions
Reactions focus on mourning, condemning excessive force by security
Narratives of the Air Defence tragedy
Ultras group accuse security forces and club president, state orders fan arrest
28 football fans killed in ‘deliberate massacre’: Ultras
State TV announced 22 were found dead following security dispersal
Yellow card for Al-Sisi?
By Amr Khalifa Over thirty Egyptians did not return home last night and Mohamed Ibrahim, Minister of Interior, shoulders responsibility. You can be certain the honorable minister is not the only party culpable in the second disaster of its kind to strike Egyptian football in the last three years, 74 lives having been extinguished in …
Keen to project a progressive image, the UAE picks its battles
By James M. Dorsey Projecting an image of being politically and culturally on the cutting edge, the United Arab Emirates carefully picks its battles. Participation in the US-led coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) has projected the United Arab Emirates as a military force to be reckoned with. Football is the …
‘Port Said Massacre’ retrial postponed to 9 February
Charges are hypothetical and imaginary, says defence