By James M. Dorsey A successful football player near the peak of his career, 22 year-old Nidhal Selmi, died last week a foreign fighter for the Islamic State, the jihadist group that controls a swath of Syria and Iraq. His death followed that of Tunisian handball goalkeeper Ahmed Yassin and Ahmed El-Darawi, a former policeman …
By James M. Dorsey War planes from oil-rich Gulf states play a supporting role in the US-led air campaign to counter the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Despite their massive weapons acquisitions in recent years the Gulf states’ participation may make little military difference in the war against the jihadists, but it serves everyone’s …
By James M. Dorsey The struggle for women’s rights to engage in and attend sport events has commanded increased attention with the hunger strike of a British-Iranian national incarcerated in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, the expected arrival in Saudi Arabia of Australian women fans for the Asian Champions League final, and the rare appearance of …
By James M. Dorsey The United Arab Emirates and Qatar are locked in a propaganda war with public relations agencies and front organisations as proxies that is backfiring on both Gulf states. Disclosures of the proxy war have hit Qatar at a time that its image as the host of the 2022 World Cup is …
By James M. Dorsey One group has been conspicuously absent in the battle for greater transparency of global football governance symbolised by multiple corruption scandals and match-fixing: football fans, a key stakeholder with a vested interest in demanding a thorough cleansing of the management of the sport. That, however, may be changing as Israel appears …
By James M. Dorsey The beheading of a second American journalist and the likely execution of a British national have left US President Barak Obama and other Western leaders few options but to step up military operations against Islamist jihadists in Iraq and expand the battle into Syria. The focus on confronting the militant jihadists …
By James M. Dorsey An expected decision by Egyptian football authorities to ban as terrorist organisations groups of militant football fans builds on the definition by Arab autocrats of legitimate, democratic opposition forces as violent threats to their grip on power. By leaving youth with ever fewer, if any, options for venting pent-up anger and …
By James M. Dorsey The meteoric rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its declaration of an Islamic State straddling the two Arab countries raises the spectre of a militant Islamist state in the heart of the Middle East East close to the borders of US allies like Israel, Jordan and …
By James M. Dorsey Iraqi football pitches have emerged as an alternative battleground in the struggle for control of Iraq between the Islamic State, the jihadist group that controls chunks of northern Iraq, and embattled Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki. Iraqi officials said the broadcasting last Sunday in Baghdad’s Al-Shaab International Stadium of the World Cup …
Distrust of the US and questions about the reliability of the US as an ally have persuaded Saudi Arabia and Israel to go public with their tacit alliance
By James M. Dorsey It didn’t take long for it to emerge that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani shared an understanding of football’s political utility with predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose conservative policies he hopes to reverse. Like Ahmadinejad, Rouhani, a cleric, is seeking to identify himself with the success of his country’s national football team, delivering …
By James M. Dorsey FIFA Vice President and Asian Football Confederation (AFC) executive committee member Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein, in an uncommon display of elegance and magnanimity in the rarefied world of world soccer as well as of Middle Eastern and North African leaders, has conceded defeat in a battle that is symptomatic of …
By James M. Dorsey World football body FIFA has dispatched investigators to Egypt to probe allegations of government interference as the country prepares for potentially risky bids to host two international tournaments, the 2017 Beach Soccer World Cup and the 2018 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup. The FIFA investigation and the bids come against the …
By James M. Dorsey An Egyptian court has sentenced 12 militant football fans to five years in prison in an expansion of the military-backed regime’s crackdown on its Islamist and non-Islamists opponents that could ultimately re-position football as a major platform of protest. The fans, members of Ultras Ahlawy, the well-organised and street battled-hardened militant …
By James M. Dorsey An Egyptian government initiative to build more than a thousand new football pitches to “keep youth off the streets” against the backdrop of a rising number of clashes between fans and security forces and a likely extension and expansion of the ban on spectators attending matches highlights the opportunities and threats …
By James M. Dorsey Bahrain has detained a soccer team as well as scores of other players and athletes since security forces squashed a popular uprising almost three years ago, according to human rights activists, journalists and officials. In one of the latest rounds of detentions, authorities last month arrested three soccer and two handball …
By James M Dorsey Qatar is taking a beating in the court of public opinion with almost daily headlines raising questions about the way the Gulf state does business. Yet, its hosting of the 2022 World Cup is emerging six months into the reign of Qatar’s new emir as an agent of change. Harsh working …
By James M. Dorsey Financially stressed Turkish football clubs are becoming pawns in the political struggle between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and militant football fans who rank prominently among his detractors as football pitches and university campuses emerge as major battlefields between the government and its detractors. Critics of Mr Erdogan charge that the …
By James M. Dorsey With Egypt deeply polarised politically and religiously, kick–starting a political process capable of bridging divides and creating an inclusive democratic process seems a distant prospect. It will ultimately depend on the likely shrinking over time of the military’s popular base and the government’s realisation that it needs the United States and …
In a perverse way, the ultras’ dilemma is not dissimilar from that of the Brotherhood, writes James M Dorsey
The UAE’s acquisition of football franchises is attracting attention away from its autocratic and reactionary policies, writes James M Dorsey
By James M Dorsey As Lebanon, a country in which almost every facet of life is defined by sectarian fault lines, teeters in the shadow of the civil war in next door Syria, the country is also being rocked by multiple mushrooming sports scandals. Months after a massive football match-fixing scandal became public and three …
By James M Dorsey The battle between Iran and various Gulf states for the identity of the energy-rich region has spilled onto its football pitches. It’s the Persian Gulf League v the Arabian Gulf League. The struggle erupted when the United Arab Emirates, alongside Saudi Arabia, the Gulf’s most fervent opponent of political Islam, recently …
By James M Dorsey A recent visit by world football body FIFA president SeppBlatter to the Middle East spotlighted the group’s role as a pillar of the existing political and football governance order under the guise of a fictional separation between sports and politics, rather than a force for greater transparency and accountability. To be …
By James M. Dorsey Militant, highly politicised football fans who played key roles in the toppling of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, opposition to post-Mubarak military rule and last month’s mass protests against Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have been, as organisations, conspicuously absent from the dramatic scenes in Cairo with the overthrow of President …
By James M. Dorsey A decision by European football body UEFA to ban two top Turkish clubs from competing in European championships for match-fixing has highlighted potentially murky politics underlying the worst scandal in Turkish sporting history. The decision in response to the Turkish Football Federation’s failure to impose penalties and in advance of an …
By James M. Dorsey Conventional wisdom predicts that 33-year old Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani will adhere to his father’s use of sports as a key foreign, defence and security policy tool to embed Qatar in the international community. Experts and pundits suggest that Sheikh Tamim at best will nibble at the fringe of …
By James M. Dorsey President Mohamed Morsi and his flailing Muslim Brotherhood have turned to foreign policy and soccer to improve their battered image in advance of a planned mass anti-government protest at the end of this month and mounting calls for his resignation. In a bid to distract attention from his domestic woes, curry …
By James M. Dorsey If there is one lesson Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan should have drawn from the popular revolts that toppled four Arab leaders and sparked civil war in Syria in the last two years, it is that police brutality strengthens protesters’ resolve and particularly that of militant, street battle-hardened football fans. …
By James M. Dorsey Football, alongside minority Shi’a Muslims and relatives of imprisoned government critics, is emerging as a focal point of dissent in Saudi Arabia, an oil-rich kingdom that, despite banning demonstrations by law, is struggling to fend off the waves of change sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. Fan pressure is …
