Qatar World Cup hosting victory still faces serious challenges

FIFA's new anti-corruption investigator: International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo 

By James M. Dorsey

Eighteen months after becoming the first Middle Eastern nation to win the right to host a World Cup, Qatar is still fending off increasingly serious challenges to its controversial victory.

With Qatar’s labor minister set to meet late next week for the first time with international trade unions in an effort to stop the launch of global boycott campaign, members of corruption scandal-ridden world soccer body FIFA’s investigative body say an investigation into how Qatar secured the World Cup is inevitable.

If that weren’t enough, critics of the gas-rich Gulf state’s World Cup success are using a fire in a shopping mall that killed 19 people, including 13 expatriate children, as well as fires at an aviation college and a school to assert that Qatari building standards are shoddy and cast doubt on the safety standards of stadiums and other World Cup-related infrastructure that Qatar is building at a cost of almost $100 billion dollars.

Peter Goldsmith, a former British attorney general and a member of a 13-person panel assembled and headed by Swiss law professor Mark Pieth at the request of FIFA president Sepp Blatter said the Qatari bid for 2022 would be investigated as would the awarding of the Russia 2018 World Cup as part of wider inquiry into the soccer body’s decisions over the last decade. Mr. Goldsmith told Bloomberg News that the inquiry would likely be launched once International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo takes over in July as FIFA’s lead anti-corruption investigator.

The Argentinian prosecutor is best known for pursuing war crimes charges against Libya's late Moammar Qaddafi and the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir.

The Qatari bid “does need to be looked into. The point is if you have a proper investigative body with a professional, independent head, that person could look at these things. That’s what I expect to happen,” Mr. Goldsmith, a partner at law firm Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, said. “Everyone knows there’s been corruption inside FIFA. There’s a statute of limitations of 10 years for most things but otherwise there shouldn’t be any impediment for a new investigative body to look at things which happened in the past and properly get into them.”

Qatari officials had hoped that controversy over its 2010 World Cup bid would subside after allegations of bribery were retracted by a disgruntled Qatari bid committee employee who said she had fabricated them and once the scandal involving disgraced FIFA vice-president and Qatari national Mohammed Bin Hammam had faded from the news. Mr. Bin Hammam was at the heart of the worst scandal in FIFA’s 108-year history that led to the resignation of long-standing FIFA executive committee member Jack Warner alongside his ousting. Two other committee members were suspended around the same time after offering their votes in non-Qatar related bids to undercover reporters.

Qatar has throughout the scandal involving Mr. Bin Hammam, who continues to deny any wrongdoing, sought to distance itself from him. In assertions that seem unlikely given Mr. Bin Hammam’s position in FIFA as well as the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the fact that he for years had secured Qatari financial backing for Mr. Blatter, Qatari officials said their fellow countryman had not been involved in the Gulf state’s World Cup bid.

It also seems likely that Qatar quietly backed Mr. Bin Hammam’s failed campaign to replace Mr. Blatter in last year’s FIFA presidential election. Mr. Bin Hammam had to abandon his presidential campaign after he was charged with bribing officials of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) with the help of Mr. Warner to secure their votes in the presidential election.

A FIFA investigation would likely resolve many of the outstanding questions about the Qatari bid and would put continued questioning by a British parliamentary committee and others about the integrity of the Qatari victory to bed provided the questions are answered satisfactorily.

If the FIFA investigation could prove troublesome, so could controversy over workers’ rights in Qatar. Qatari Labor Minister Nassir bin Abdulla Alhumid has agreed to meet for the first time with International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) General Secretary Sharan Burrow on June 11 on the side lines of the International Labor Organization’s annual conference in Geneva.

The ITUC with 175 million members in 153 countries has equated the working conditions of primarily Asian foreign laborers in Qatar, who form one of the Gulf state’s largest population groups, as modern-day slavery. It has demanded that Qatar introduce international labor standards and allow the formation of independent unions and collective bargaining.

Qatar’s labor ministry, in a bid to fend off a planned ITUC campaign to boycott the 2022 World Cup and pressure FIFA to move it to another country, has  offered to set up a government controlled union asserting that it would be elected and independent.

Ms. Burrow said in a statement that she would “set out for Qatar’s Labor Minister the legal steps the government needs to take to ensure freedom of association and collective bargaining for its huge migrant workforce. Labor laws introduced in Qatar should be in line with international standards as set out by the ILO.  The law needs to allow workers the right to form and join their own unions, and freely elect their own representatives without the government dictating who they can vote for,” she said.

Ms. Burrow noted that labor conditions were one reason why the International Olympic Committee (IOC) last week disqualified Qatar’s bid to host the 2020 Olympics. “The IOC’s evaluation of Doha’s Olympics bid stated ‘training and accommodating an experienced Olympic Games workforce to deliver this infrastructure within the required timeframe presents a major challenge and risk,’” she said.

The trade union leader has focused on the plight of Nepalese workers as examples of the problems foreign labor encounter in Qatar. “I spoke to young men forced to work in 40-degree heat for slave wages. They were angry that they had their rights taken away from them the moment they landed in Qatar to start work. We need tough laws that give workers their rights, and protects their wages, conditions and their lives,” Ms. Burrow said

She said living conditions in labour camps were appalling and that low wages were often paid late. The ITUC quoting figures provided by the Nepalese embassy in Doha said 127 Nepalese workers had died in Qatar in the first eleven months of last year: 13 had committed suicide, 22 as a result of work-related incidents and 92 others for reasons that were not clear.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a consultant to geopolitical consulting firm Wikistrat.

Global Sporting Events: Battlegrounds for Human Rights

RSIS presents the following commentary Global Sporting Events: Battlegrounds for  Human Rights by James M. Dorsey. It is also available online at this link. (To print it, click on this link.). Kindly forward any comments or feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, at  RSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg No. 089/2012 dated 28 May 2012 Global Sporting Events: Battlegrounds for Human Rights  By James M. Dorsey        Synopsis With the London Olympics less than two months away major global sporting events are increasingly proving to be Middle Eastern battlegrounds for human rights rather than an expensive way for countries to boost their prestige and sense of national pride. Commentary Flashy, high-profile events in the Middle East like the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Formula-1 in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi and tennis championships in Dubai have become leverage points in the hands of international and local activists and flashpoints of protest against autocratic regimes To detractors of Gulf Arab regimes the tournaments are symbols of an effort to retain power in part by squandering resources to pacify people with glittering totems of unbalanced and often misconceived development as well as games. That perception is reinforced by a sense that major economic benefactors of sporting events are often members of the host’s ruling family Currently the British Foreign Office is struggling whether to allow a Syrian general close to embattled President Bashar al-Assad to attend the Olympics. General Mowaffak  Joumaa, head of Syria's Olympic committee, has signaled his intention to be present in London in contrast to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who said he was not coming because Britain had an undisclosed “problem” with his presence. The general sees his attendance as a way to project the Assad regime as an accepted member of the international community despite widespread condemnation of its brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters and rebels. Anti-government protests foiled a Bahraini attempt earlier this year to use Formula-1 to portray the country as stable and harmonious following last year’s hard-handed suppression of anti-government demonstrations. The attempt backfired. Rather than focusing on happenings on the race track, international attention turned instead to continued discontent and the government’s failure to move ahead with meaningful political and economic reforms demanded by the Shiite Muslim majority of the ruling Sunni majority. Meanwhile, Gulf states are feeling the heat of the labour movement to change foreign workers’ conditions, widely denounced as modern day slavery, as a result of Qatar’s winning of the right to host the 2022 World Cup. Confronting existential fears Union pressure to change the labour system cuts to the core of the nature of Gulf societies, whose dependence on foreign labour has turned the local citizenry into a minority in countries like Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Beyond the commercial and economic advantages of a cheap pool of labour, discussion of any kind of rights for non-locals raises the spectre of minority Gulf populations no longer having countries that they control. Gulf states are nonetheless seeking to avoid confrontation with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), which represents 175 million workers in 153 countries. The ITUC is threatening Qatar with a boycott campaign of the 2022 World Cup if it fails to bring the conditions of up to one million primarily Asian workers engaged in construction of stadiums and other huge infrastructure projects in line with international standards. Qatar’s Labour Minister Nassir bin Abdulla Alhumidi agreed recently to meet the ITUC for the first time at the International Labour Organisation conference next month. Saudi Arabia has followed Qatar in announcing that it was looking to replace employer sponsorship of workers with a licensing system. Qatari Labour Undersecretary Hussein Al-Mulla said earlier this month that the energy-rich Gulf state would form “an elected and independent workers’ union to protect workers’ rights regardless of their nationality.” However the moves by the Gulf states amount to too little too late. They have failed to appease the ITUC and have put world soccer body FIFA on the spot because it does not want to be seen as endorsing the staging of the world’s largest sporting event on the back of perceived slavery and violations of human rights. Until Qatar’s agreement to meet the ITUC next month governments in the Gulf had refused to engage in a dialogue with the trade unions and other interest groups who are using the staging of major global sporting events to push for changes that would bring the region into line with accepted international practice. They also seek to underwrite the calls for social justice echoing across North Africa and West Asia from the Atlantic coast to the Gulf that have been in revolt since December 2010. As a result, trade unions are moving ahead with plans for a global campaign under the motto 'No World Cup in Qatar without labour rights’, to deprive Qatar of its right to host the 2022 World Cup if it failed to align its labour legislation and workers’ condition with international standards. It was not immediately clear whether Al Mulla’s announcement went further than his proposal in early May to establish a Qatari-led labour committee that would represent workers’ interests rather than a union able to engage in collective bargaining; he had also proposed abolition of the sponsorship system that would stop short of allowing foreign workers to freely change jobs. Battle for labour rights The unions’ sense of urgency stems from the death last year of some 200 Nepalese workers, allegedly as the result of harsh working conditions as well as the fact that companies are developing their supply chains and costing models for major infrastructure projects on the basis of what they describe as unacceptable labour terms. The battle for labour rights is one that could significantly alter the paradigm on which international sporting bodies like FIFA and the International Olympic Committee award hosting rights. A successful campaign for labour rights would force such bodies to take workers’ conditions and by extension, adherence to human rights, into account in the awarding of future tournaments. Qatar learnt the price of reputational risk this week when the International Olympic Committee rejected its bid for the 2020 Olympics The campaign could also spark long overdue debate over the unsustainable demographic structure of wealthy Gulf states that are home to generations of Gulf-born descendants of immigrants with no rights, no secure prospects and no real stake in the countries of their birth. As their number continues to increase, educated and prosperous Gulf-born expatriates are beginning to demand that they be given equal rights and caution that they no longer can be bought off with cushy tax-free incomes and benefits. The scion of a wealthy South Asian family in the Gulf, when asked whether he minded that his Gulf born children would grow up with no rights and no security, responded: “Absolutely, that is no longer acceptable. Gulf societies will have to change by hook or by crook.” James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He has been a journalist covering the Middle East for over 30 years. Click here for past commentaries. Find us on Facebook Due to the high number of publications by our RSIS Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS), RSIS maintains a separate subscription facility for the Centre. Please click here to subscribe to the Centre's publications.

Conservative Christians and Muslims campaign against Muslim women’s soccer headdress

By James M. Dorsey

Proponents of allowing observant Muslim female soccer players to wear a head dress and anti-autocratic protesters in the Middle East and North Africa are running up against similar conservative attempts to roll back their achievements. Ironically, they are both confronting alliances that at times cut across confessional boundaries.

While the battle to secure the goals of successful protests in post-revolt Egypt, Tunisia and Libya has largely moved from the street to the polling station and backroom horse trading, the campaign for a woman’s head dress on the pitch that meets security and safety standards is being waged in the secretive board rooms of authorities that govern association soccer.

While protesters in the Middle East and North Africa have learnt the hard way that toppling an autocrat is but the first step to ensuring greater freedom and social justice, pro-head dress campaigners are discovering that tentative board decisions are no more than tentative and open to challenge. That is even truer given world soccer body FIFA’s lack of transparency and accountability and its failure at times to avoid conflicts of interest.

FIFA Executive Committee member, medical doctor and head of the soccer body’s medical committee Michel D’Hooghe, in the latest twist in the campaign for observant Muslim female soccer player’s rights, has thrown into doubt a decision last March by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) that sets the rules for association soccer to temporarily allow the wearing of a head dress that meets safety and security criteria while various designs and models are tested. IFAB decided at the meeting that it would take its final decision in July based on the testing results.

Speaking at a news conference at last week’s FIFA congress in Budapest, Dr. D’Hooghe, in a sudden about face withdrew from his earlier backing of the IFAB decision saying that “we have received some samples and some doctors, including from the Muslim countries, said they (headscarves) represented a danger. When a girl is running at speed someone can hit the head scarf and that can lead to head lesions,” he said. Dr D’Hooghe suggested that further testing may be needed.

It was not immediately clear what prompted Dr. D’Hooghe’s turnaround and he did not respond to requests for comment.

Dr. D’Hooghe was a co-drafter and signatory of a statement that favoured allowing a head dress issued last October at a meeting in Amman of soccer executives, referees, players and this reporter convened by FIFA Vice President Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, a half-brother of Jordanian King Abdullah who campaigned for his soccer post on a platform that called for greater women’s rights.

The statement defined the hijab, a head dress that covers a woman’s hair, neck and ears in accordance with Muslim custom as a cultural rather than a religious issue. “The hijab issue has taken centre stage in football circles in recent years due to the increasing popularity of women’s football worldwide. It is a cultural issue that not only affects the game, but also impacts society and sports in general. It is not limited to Asia, but extends to other continents as well,” the statement said.

It called on FIFA to articulate a clear policy that “avoid(s) any form of discrimination or exclusion of football players due to cultural customs” and establishes the pitch as “a forum for cultural exchange rather than conflict.”

Dr. D’Hooghe, one of FIFA’s longest serving executive committee members, has since reportedly denied involvement in the drafting of the statement or having agreed to sign it.

Proponents of the head dress believe that Dr. D’Hooghe’s turnaround and the effort to backtrack on IFAB’s decision – employing medical arguments much like the English Football Association did almost a century ago when it banned women’s soccer – strengthens an uncoordinated scala of conservative anti-Muslim, sexist, feminist and conservative Muslim opposition to the head dress by disparate parties that each have different interests.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s most conservative Muslim nation, has privately argued against the IFAB decision because it undermines the kingdom’s rejection of women’s sports in general and soccer in particular. IFAB’s endorsement came at a moment that Saudi Arabia, the only nation unlikely to be represented by women at this summer’s Olympics, is under mounting pressure from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as well as human rights and women’s groups to include women in its delegation in London.

Any delay in the definitive approval of the hijab by IFAB could have implications for teams competing FIFA Under-17 Women's World Cup in Baku in September – a move that would make Saudi Arabia appear less isolated.

FIFA insiders suggest that the soccer body’s president, Sepp Blatter, widely believed to be a conservative Catholic, is ambiguous towards the hijab. A former president in the 1970s of the World Society of Friends of Suspenders that campaigns against women swapping their suspender belts for pantyhose, Mr. Blatter famously said when asked in 2004 how to popularize soccer: "Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball. Female players are pretty, if you excuse me for saying so, and they already have some different rules to men – such as playing with a lighter ball. That decision was taken to create a more female aesthetic, so why not do it in fashion?"

Mr. Blatter advised gays in 2010 after Qatar, a country that bans homosexuality, was awarded the 2022 World Cup to “refrain from sexual activities” during the tournament.

A meeting of the 17-member FIFA medical committee in the wake of the IFAB decision focused on the threat of carotid sinus irritation - a condition to which men over 50 rather than women are susceptible - that a head dress could pose rather than on the danger of strangulation or heat emission, according to persons familiar with the proceedings.

Cleveland Clinic’s Dr. Bruce D. Lindsay, a sports medical expert, refuted the threat in a letter to Prince Ali dated May 21.

“If vigorous carotid sinus massage were performed by a physician with knowledge of anatomy, it might cause minor slowing of the pulse or possibly a brief pause in a healthy young athlete; however, even this response would be blunted during the level of exertion expected during a football game… it is extremely unlikely that a reasonable degree of carotid pressure would have any effect. The risk of inducing loss of consciousness is negligible. There is no reason to believe that a light headscarf with breakaway attachments, such as Velcro or magnets, would exert effective occlusive pressure simultaneously on both carotid arteries such as occurs when a choke hold is used in Judo or hand to hand combat. In summary, there is no medical basis to prevent women from playing football with sports headscarfs that are designed for quick release in the event of inadvertent contact,” Dr. Lindsay wrote.

During the committee meeting, a female woman staffer was asked to put on one of the designer’s head dresses. Committee members, including three from the Arab world, pulled at the head dress, according to persons familiar with the proceedings, on the basis of which the committee declared it unsafe.

At a follow-up meeting called at Prince Ali’s request, designers of head dresses for soccer players and representatives of testing institutions briefed Dr. D’Hooghe and committee advisor Jiri Dvorak.

Dr. D’Hooghe advised FIFA on the basis of the two meetings that designs presented to the medical committee had been deemed unsafe.

“We were shocked that he could write a recommendation on that basis. We don’t know what prompted this or changed his mind,” said Michele Cox, a director of Prince Ali’s foundation, Asian Football Development Project, and a former member of FIFA’s women’s committee who attended the Amman meeting.

Prince Ali said in an interview that he has called on Dr. D’Hooghe and Mr. Dvorak to explain their reversal and rejection of the head dress to IFAB at its next meeting in July. Prince Ali said the hijab issue should be addressed with the same sincerity FIFA approaches other issues such as goal line technology and various designs should be rigorously tested on the pitch for a period of time. “Let them do it properly,” Prince Ali said.

The IFAB meeting is likely to be a litmus test of Mr. Blatter’s intentions. IFAB’s eight members -- four from FIFA as well as one each from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland – are appointed in advance of each of its meetings. Dr. D’Hooghe is often one of the FIFA representatives when IFAB discusses medical issues. FIFA has yet to announce who will represent it at IFAB’s next meeting and if Dr. D’Hooghe is delegated whether he would be attending as a decision making IFAB member or an expert witness.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a consultant to geopolitical consulting firm Wikistrat.

Egypt election offers youth and soccer fans second chance

By James M. Dorsey

The Arab world’s first free and fair presidential elections pose a dilemma and a wake-up call for militant Egyptian soccer fans and revolutionary youth groups as the two surviving candidates seek to win their votes in a run-off next month in which a majority of the votes are up for grabs.

To many analysts, the results of the first round of the elections that produced ousted President Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister Ahmed Shafiq and the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi as the two surviving candidates, illustrate the marginalization of the revolutionaries and the soccer fans. Yet, a closer look shows that the result  constitutes both a narrow defeat and an opportunity for those in Egypt yearning for real change rather than an immediate restoration of stability in the face of growing unemployment and rising street crime.

In a country that 15 months after Mr. Mubarak’s departure has grown protest weary and yearns for a return to economic growth and security, Messrs. Morsi and Shafiq’s victory reflects the fact that they represent the two Egyptian forces with an institutionalized political machinery and political experience. Mr. Shafiq moreover benefitted from a state-owned media that portrayed the youth and soccer fan groups as responsibility for the post-revolt instability and economic decline.

Nonetheless, the two candidates favored by the revolutionaries – independent Islamist Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh and Nasserist Hamdeen Sabahi – together won 40 per cent of the vote. They failed to make it into the run-off because they split the vote for change. “The Mubarak camp understood that for them this first round was now or never. They had to win. We were divided in the spirit of democracy. We would have won had we decided to support one candidate,” said a militant soccer fan.

In a potentially explosive move, Mr. Sabahi has called for a partial vote recount, citing violations that he says could change the outcome given that he failed to make the cut for the run-off by a margin of only 700,000 votes. For their part, Messrs. Morsi and Shafiq secured 49 per cent of the vote in a first round in which 13 candidates stood for office. Mr. Morsi’s 25 per cent is a far cry from the 46 per cent the Brotherhood won in last year’s parliamentary election.

As a result, Messrs. Morsi and Shafiq focused barely 48 hours after the first round on seeking to convince youth groups and soccer fans that they stand for change rather than for preserving as much of Mr. 

Mubarak’s repressive regime as possible or an accommodation that would secure the role, privileges and perks of Egypt’s transitory military rulers. Theirs are campaigns that are already shaping up ones that play on people’s fears – the fear of the restoration of the Mubarak regime versus the fear of Islamic rule. Nonetheless, swaying the youth and soccer fan groups is likely to prove a tall order, albeit one that may be easier for Mr. Morsi than for Mr. Shafiq.

For the youth groups and soccer fans who were at the core of last year’s mass protests that toppled Mr. 

Mubarak and since then fought pitched street battles against security forces in a bid to force  the military to return to its barracks Mr. Shafiq is unpalatable. Mr. Morsi, with youth groups and militant, highly politicized, well organized violence-prone, street battled-hardened soccer fan groups or ultras debating whether to rally behind the Muslim Brotherhood leader or boycott the next election, stands a reasonable chance of securing at least a segment of the revolutionary vote. Nonetheless, it remains for the youth and soccer fan groups a choice between two evils.

Mr. Shafiq, who was forced to resign shortly after the toppling of Mr. Mubarak defended the former president’s regime long after his departure and made criticism of the revolt a pillar of his first round election campaign, sought this weekend to assure the youth groups, soccer fans and undecided voters that he intended to realize the goals of their revolt. He vowed that there would be no "recreation of the old regime" and said he was “fed up with being labeled 'old regime’. All Egyptians are part of the old regime," he said.

That is unlikely to cut him much slack with youth groups and soccer fans who see him as co-responsible for the bloody street battles with security forces and pro-Mubarak thugs in which hundreds of people were killed in the walk-up to the ousting of the president. Mr. Shafiq was appointed prime minister by Mr. Mubarak four days after last year’s protests erupted in a last ditch attempt to squash the demonstrations and left office barely two weeks after the president was ousted.

Addressing the youth groups and soccer fans in an about face at a news conference this weekend, Mr. Shafiq said: "Your revolution has been hijacked. I pledge to bring its fruits between your hands. Egypt has changed and there will be no turning back the clock. We have had a glorious revolution. I pay tribute to this glorious revolution and pledge to be faithful to its call for justice and freedom."

If Mr. Shafiq’s legacy is one that he will find hard to live down, Mr. Morsi will have to alter the perception that youth and soccer fan groups believe that the Brotherhood’s repeated willingness to accommodate the military in the post-revolt phase, including its backing for last year’s March 19 referendum on constitutional amendments, helped derail their revolt aimed at achieving social justice and greater freedom.

That referendum among others contributed to a situation in which decisions of the five-member Elections Committee, headed by an obscure judge originally appointed by Mr. Mubarak to oversee his son’s succession and whose deputy is a judge believed to be close to the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, are final and cannot be appealed. It also has led to a president being elected without his powers being defined by a constitution that has yet to be drafted.

“Morsi has a lot to answer for. He nonetheless stands a fighting chance to convince at least some of us that he is the better of two evils. Shafiq will appeal to those who want a return to stability and an end to the revolution. But he won’t find any buyers among the youth and the ultras,” said one militant soccer fan who is a yet undecided whether he will vote in next month’s run-off.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a consultant to geopolitical consulting firm Wikistrat. 

JMD Webinar May 29 12:00 EST

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CKC Speaker Series: Mr. James Dorsey

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You are invited to the inaugural presentation of the CKC 

Speaker Series.

Mr. James Dorsey will discuss "Soccer as an Engine of Change and Assertion 

of Identity." This

 seminar explores soccer’s unique role in the battle against the yoke of autocratic rule, 

economic mismanagement and corruption as well as that of militant, highly politicized, 

violence-prone soccer fans in this year’s popular revolts. The role of the militants 

extends a tradition of soccer’s close association with politics across the Middle East and 

 North Africa that is evident until today inderbies in cities like Cairo, Amman, 

 Tehran and Riyadh.

Date: Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Start Time: 12:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time

View (and listen) to the presentation using Defense Connect Online (DCO). You may enter

 as a guest (no registration required). Once you click on

https://connect.dco.dod.mil/ckcspeakers and enter the "room," you should be

 able to hear the speaker and see any visuals he/she presents. There may also be

 downloads and links available. There is NO COST to you.

About This Speaker: James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological

 University’s S. Rajaratnam  School of International Studies, the author of the blog, The 

Turbulent world of Middle East Soccer. He is an award winning journalist covering topics 

such as ethnic and religious conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin 

America for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, inical Times and The Christian 

Science Monitor. James is regularly asked to conduct investigations in terrorism-related

legal cases. He most recently contributed a chapter to a book on the world after the death 

of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden

Views of participants and/or speakers involved in the CKC Speaker Series, unless otherwise 

noted, are their  own and should not be interpreted as official US Government/Military policy 

or positions.

Qatari Olympic women athletes spotlight Wahhabi schism

Qatari sprinter Noor al-Malki (Source: insidethegames.biz)

By James M. Dorsey

The question for Qatari sprinter Noor al-Malki is not whether she will be part of the first group of Qatari women to ever compete in a global sports tournament at the 2012 London Olympics but how she will handle the fact that the competition will take place during Ramadan.

The question whether Ms. Al-Malki would be able to compete was resolved when Qatar, alongside Saudi Arabia and Brunei the only nation never to have been represented by women in a global sporting event, decided last year to allow women to compete in the London Olympics.

The decision was the result of Qatar’s concerted effort to become a sports power and mounting international pressure on the International Olympic Committee (IOC), not to allow countries to compete that discriminate against athletes on the basis of gender.

It saved Qatar, already threatened with a global trade union campaign against its hosting of the 2022 World Cup because of the conditions under which it employs foreign labour, from becoming the target of yet another attack on its reputation, already dented by controversy over its successful campaign to win the right to host the World Cup. The bruising debate over the soccer tournament bid contributed to the International Olympic Committee’s decision to eliminate Qatar as a candidate for the 2020 Olympics.

The debate also highlights the major divide among Wahhabis, followers of 18th century puritan warrior priest Mohammed Abdul Wahhab, with Saudi Arabia, the only other country besides Qatar with a majority Wahhabi population, and the IOC still struggling barely two months before the opening of the London Olympics to find a formula that would circumvent the kingdom’s conservative opposition to women’s participation.

A Human Rights Watch report released in February, called on Saudi Arabia to protect women's equal right to sports and urged the IOC to live up to its charter, which prohibits discrimination, or face a ban similar to that imposed on Afghanistan in 1999 partly for its exclusion of female athletes.

For Ms. Al-Malki, the Qatari decision means that she is grappling beyond wanting to perform at the London Olympics with the requirement to fast during the 30 days of Ramadan during which the tournament will be held. If the decision to allow women to compete may have been difficult because of mounting conservative opposition to Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani’s liberal policies designed to position his tiny gas-rich Gulf state on the world map, resolving the issue of Ramadan coinciding with the Olympics is easy.

While Islamic law does not grant athletes dispensation from fasting during Ramadan, it does allow travellers to break the fast during their journey provided they catch up once they return home. Ms. Al-Malki will be travelling during the Olympics.

That is a luxurious position to be in compared to her Saudi counterparts who still do not know whether they will be going to London. Initial Saudi suggestions that the kingdom would for the first time send female athletes to the Olympics were dashed when Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud declared in April that “female sports activity has not existed (in the kingdom) and there is no move thereto in this regard. At present, we are not embracing any female Saudi participation in the Olympics or other international championships.”

The IOC has rejected Saudi suggestions that Saudi women living abroad be allowed to compete under the Olympic flag rather than as part of the official Saudi delegation.

"It's not an easy situation. There is a commitment. We're working steadily with them to find a good solution,” conceded IOC President Jacques Rogge at a recent news conference. "We are continuing to discuss with them, and the athletes are trying (to qualify). We would hope they will qualify in due time for the games."

With few Saudi women athletes likely to qualify for the Olympics, the IOC has gone out of its way to encourage participation by suggesting that they would be exempted from qualifying standards and granted entry under special circumstances.

Saudi women participation appears however increasingly unlikely with conservative opposition making it difficult for the government to back down at a time that it is rallying the wagons to shield itself against the wave of anti-government protests in the Middle East and North Africa that has already sparked increased political activism and mobilisation in the kingdom. At his news conference, Mr. Rogge declined to discuss possible penalties if the kingdom refused to include women in its Olympic team.

The Saudi government has recently employed the clergy to condemn the protests that have already toppled the autocratic leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen and brought Syria to the brink of civil war, which, according to some, are the result of the mingling of the sexes in sports.

Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Sheikh denounced the protests earlier this month as sinful. "The schism, instability, the malfunctioning of security and the breakdown of unity that Islamic countries are facing these days is a result of the sins of the public and their transgressions," Sheikh Abdulaziz said.

Such sins include, according to Imam Abu Abdellah of As-Sunnah mosque in Kissimee, Florida, speaking in a video posted on the Internet, the mixing of the sexes at sports events. “In the past it was only men, now it is almost half half (in stadiums). Allah knows what happens afterwards. Either way it is bad. Either people go out, they are sensing and partying and drinking and all that, so that’s negative. And if they don’t, they go out and they demonstrate and they’re angry and they destroy property and they destroy cars and they destroy people’s business. Either way its haram (forbidden), things have to be done in moderation,” Abu Abedallah said.

Sheikh Abdullah bin Suleiman Al Manei, a member of the Gulf Kingdom’s supreme scholars committee and an advisor to King Abdullah warned that “the spread of such (bad) acts on play fields is a clear indicator of a decline in moral values and the transformation of sport from fair competition into bigotry.”

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a consultant to geopolitical consulting firm Wikistrat. 

Islamistes-football, le match qui secoue l'Afrique (JMD on France TV)

Islamistes-football, le match qui secoue l'Afrique

Publié le 25/05/2012 | 11:15 , mis à jour le 25/05/2012 | 11:15

Des enfants jouent au foot devant une mosquée, à Niamey (Niger), le 14 septembre 2011. 

(SIA KAMBOU / AFP)

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Barcelone-Chelsea, demi-finale de la Ligue des champions, le 24 avril : dans le monde entier, on se souvient de l'exploit du club anglais. Sauf à Jos, dans le nord du Nigeria, où l'on se rappelle surtout l'attentat dans un café diffusant le match, qui a fait un mort et neuf blessés. Depuis, les bars de la ville sont soumis à un couvre-feu, à cause de la menace islamiste. Un condensé de la situation en Afrique où le ballon rond représente tout à la fois le sport-roi sans conteste et un casse-tête pour les islamistes. Considéré en même temps comme un "acte satanique" en Somalie, un "jeu d'infidèles" au Nigeria ou encore un tabou pour Al-Qaïda au Maghreb islamique (Aqmi), il fait office de gage de respectabilité pour les Frères musulmans en Egypte. 

• En Somalie, les enfants à la guerre

En 2006, les shebabs, les rebelles islamistes qui contrôlent une grande partie du pays, ont qualifié ce sport "d'acte satanique". Une condamnation qui n'en est pas restée au stade des mots : au début du Mondial 2010, des Somaliens qui s'étaient réunis dans une maison pour regarder volets fermés et sans le son (lien en anglais) un Allemagne-Australie ont été massacrés. Un mois plus tard, en Ouganda, un bar et une discothèque qui diffusaient la finale Pays-Bas-Espagne ont été pris pris pour cible. 

Un restaurant de Kampala (Ouganda) visé par un attentat organisé par les islamistes somaliens, le 12 juillet 2010.

(REUTERS)

Si les fans sont visés, les joueurs ne sont pas épargnés. Un kamikaze a tué une étoile montante du foot somalien en 2011, relate la BBC (lien en anglais). En Somalie, "le foot est une distraction par rapport à l'objectif unique qu'est le djihad, explique Hanna Ouaknine, spécialiste des shebabs. Deux ados ont été mis à mort pour avoir regardé un match. S'ils sont surpris à jouer au foot, les enfants sont punis et battus. Car pour les shebabs, les enfants sont appelés à devenir très jeunes des enfants-soldats." Et ça n'est guère mieux dans le camp d'en face : le gouvernement de transition utilise aussi des enfants comme chair à canon, relate ainsi Le Monde.fr. 

Les shebabs, qui veulent créer un émirat islamique sur le modèle de ce qu'ont fait les talibans en Afghanistan, n'ont pas banni que le foot : "Ils ont interdit les cloches dans les écoles, sous prétexte qu'elles rappelaient les églises catholiques, poursuit Hanna Ouaknine. Ils ont aussi interdit l'anglais, ce qui a posé problème car la Somalie reprenait les programmes scolaires du Kenya, rédigés en anglais. Du coup, ils ont interdit l'école et l'ont remplacée par des cours sur le Coran et le maniement des armes..." Sans ballon rond à la récré, bien entendu.

• Au Nigeria, Boko Haram en lutte contre les survêts

Les membres de la secte terroriste Boko Haram se surnomment eux-mêmes les "talibans du Nigeria". Dans leur esprit, il ne peut y avoir qu'un seul opium du peuple. "Le foot est vu comme un jeu pratiqué par les infidèles, qui distrait les gens de leur devoir religieux, explique James M. Dorsey, universitaire spécialiste du football au Moyen-Orient et auteur du blog The Turbulent World of Middle-East Soccer. Et même les vêtements de sport sont vus comme contraires à l'islam."

Dans le nord du pays, les islamistes de Boko Haram ont attaqué des bars et des "viewing centers", des salles communes équipées d'une télé. Les journées de championnat de Premier League anglaise sont classées à hauts risques. La ville de Jos, sur le terrain d'action de Boko Haram, a dû interdire début mai la diffusion du footdans les cafés depuis le Chelsea-Barcelone cible d'un attentat. Dommage collatéral : la fédération nigériane a décidé de déplacer une rencontre de l'équipe nationale, prévue dans une grande ville du nord, dans le sud du pays. Officiellement, rien à voir avec la menace Boko Haram (lien en anglais). Officieusement, en revanche...

Un supporter nigérian écoute un match de l'équipe nationale pendant la Coupe du monde 2002 dans les rues de Lagos, la capitale, le 12 juin 2002.

(PIUS UTOMI EKPEI / AFP)

La secte ne prend pas un risque démesuré en s'attaquant au football, sport n°1 en Afrique et au Nigeria. Les stars viennent du sud du pays (16 des 23 joueurs retenus au Mondial 2010, par exemple), les grands clubs du championnnat se situent dans cette partie du pays... tandis que le fief de Boko Haram, et la population qui compte à ses yeux, est au nord. 

• Au Mali, Ansar Dine sur la même ligne

Le groupe islamiste Ansar Dine, qui contrôle une partie du nord du pays, pratique le même programme "culturel" que Boko Haram et les shebabs. Les télévisions utilisées pour regarder des matchs ou jouer à des jeux vidéo ? Détruites. Pratiquer le foot ? C'est interdit. Les habitants de la ville de Gao, tombée aux mains de ces rebelles, ont manifesté pour le retour de leurs droits et ont été reçus par les nouveaux maîtres de la ville avec des coups de feu.

"Les interdictions sociales sont énoncées par des groupes dont le projet politique est de régenter la vie des gens. Tracer des lignes rouges, c'est un calcul politique classique des groupes terroristes. Ils savent tout de suite qui est avec eux, et contre eux",analyse Yves Trotignon, spécialiste du terrorisme au cabinet Risk&Co. 

• Aqmi se désintéresse du ballon rond

Il y a deux raisons qui expliquent le silence d'Al-Qaïda au Maghreb islamique (Aqmi), le groupe phare de l'islamisme radical en Afrique, sur le football. "Interdire le foot est révélateur d'une forme de coupure avec la jeunesse. Or, qui constitue les troupes d'Aqmi ? Des jeunes, souvent en rupture scolaire, dont la seule distraction est de taper dans un ballon", constate Yves Trotignon. Qui poursuit : "Et contrairement à Boko Haram ou aux shebabs, Aqmi [dont le noyau dur, qui se situe en Algérie, est l'héritier des groupes terroristes des années 90] est un groupe terroriste qui sait qu'il n'arrivera pas à renverser le régime algérien. Donc il n'a pas besoin de chercher à contrôler la société."

En vingt ans de jihad en Algérie, il n'y a pratiquement jamais eu d'attentat contre un match de foot. 

• Un Frères musulmans FC a bien failli exister

Contrairement aux shebabs, à Boko Haram et à Aqmi, les Frères musulmans veulent le pouvoir par les urnes en Egypte. Et pas se contenter d'un rôle d'éternel opposant. "Pour les Frères musulmans, le foot est considéré comme un moyen de faire de l'entrisme social, avec des équipes communautaires, explique Yves Trotignon. J'ai vu des foules plus impressionnantes pour la reprise du championnat égyptien que lors des manifestations de la place Tahrir. Ce serait une erreur politique, un handicap, que de s'attaquer au football en Egypte."

Le parti politique des Frères musulmans organise des meetings pour l'élection présidentielle dans des stades de foot, comme ici à Zagazig, à 90 km du Caire (Egypte), le 23 avril 2012.

(KHALED DESOUKI / AFP)

L'organisation islamiste organise des meetings dans des stades, ce qui serait impensable en Somalie. "Les Frères musulmans ont même envisagé de créer une équipe de foot, mais ils y ont renoncé", souligne James M. Dorsey. La nouvelle avait provoqué l'ironie des Egyptiens, qui attendaient avec impatience le match contre le FC Police (la police détient effectivement un club, Ittihad El-Shorta). Des Egyptiens curieux aussi d'assister à l'interprétation des règles façon Frères musulmans et qui en blaguaient déjà : "Tout joueur qui tire la barbe de son adversaire sera sanctionné d'un carton jaune", cite Al Arabya (lien en anglais). Mais depuis, le parti qu'ont fondé les Frères musulmans a gagné les élections législatives. "Les Frères musulmans se sont rendu compte que ce dont avait besoin le pays, c'était surtout un nettoyage de la corruption des années Moubarak dans les institutions sportives", conclut James M. Dorsey. 

Moralité : dis-moi ce que veut ton groupe islamiste, je te dirais s'il interdit le football ou pas. "C'est trompeur de penser que l'islamisme est un bloc cohérent, uni, sans aspérité. Sa relation au football en est une illustration", résume Yves Trotignon.

Pierre Godon