Drone strikes take out key members of Somali terror group (JMD on Russia Today)

Members and supporters of the activist group CODEPINK dress in orange jumpsuits during a protest outside the National Defense University, where US President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak about his administration's counter terrorism policy, including the thorny issues of drone strikes and the future of the American prison at Guantanamo Bay, in Washington, DC.

Photo credit: © EPA/JIM LO SCALZO

By Crystal Park

WASHINGTON (VOR) – Two members of the terrorist group al-Shabab have been killed by a U.S. military strike in Somalia.

It's a sign of growing U.S. anti-terrorism efforts in the region. Earlier in October, the U.S. Navy SEALS conducted a raid in Somali to take down a Kenyan al-Shabab member.
After the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the U.S. is evolving the way it fights terrorism. Instead of boots on the ground, targeted drone strikes are becoming the preferred method.
However, Dr. James Dorsey, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, says although the U.S. prefers drone strikes because they're "cleaner" than boots on the ground, the drones present several problems.
"The problem with the drone strikes is that at times civilians or people not associated with the targets are among the casualties. The second thing is it really doesn't take into account what the facts on the ground are, what tribal relationships are. So often what these strikes do is they do take out a target...but at the same time, they could aggravate tensions on the ground, and have long-term consequences.

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Critics of Qatari sports, labor and foreign policy target its commercial interests

By James M. Dorsey

Opponents of Qatar’s foreign, sports and labor policies are striking at the Gulf state’s commercial interests in a bid to either force it to embrace reform or punish it for its support of Islamist groups.

Britain’s powerful GMB trade union called this week on British construction companies active in Qatar and particularly those bidding for 2022 World Cup-related projects not to exploit cheap migrant labor that has become a focal point of controversy over the Gulf state’s hosting of the one of the world’s foremost sporting events.

World soccer body FIFA was forced earlier this month to take the living and working conditions of migrant workers, who constitute a majority of Qatar’s population and 94 percent of its workforce, into consideration in its deliberations over whether to move the Cup from summer to winter because of the Gulf state’s extreme summer temperatures.

In a letter to the chief executive officers of 13 British companies, GMB international officer Bert Schouwenberg requested a meeting to discuss the issue. The companies on Mr. Schouwenberg’s list included the construction manager of London's Shard skyscraper, Mace, Heathrow Terminal Five builder Laing O' Rourke, FTSE 250 group Kier, Balfour Beatty which is advising Qatar on a $1 billion highways project and Interserve that was awarded $100 million worth of contracts to help the Gulf state exploit of its vast natural gas reserves.

“We believe that UK companies have a particular responsibility to ensure that their Qatar-based employees, regardless of their nationality, and their sub-contractors' employees enjoy terms and conditions within globally accepted standards of 'decent work' as laid down by organizations such as the International Labor Organization," Mr. Schouwenberg wrote. He charged that workers in Qatar "face quite appalling conditions, are treated little better than slaves and live in unacceptable squalid accommodation".

The GMB move is part of a campaign by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) to deprive Qatar of its World Cup hosting rights if it fails to improve working and living conditions and abolish its kafala sponsorship system which makes workers beholden to their employers.

British and other foreign contractors targeted by the unions are likely to point to the fact that on paper Qatari rules and regulations guarantee a host of workers’ rights in terms of working and living conditions but not the more politically loaded ones such as the right to form independent unions and bargain collectively. The Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee, which is responsible for organizing the World Cup, as well as Qatar Foundation have this year adopted charters that go beyond Qatari law in recognizing workers’ rights.

In practice, Qatar has however lagged in implementing and enforcing its rules and regulations. The Qatar labor ministry admitted as much earlier this month when it pledged to significantly tighten oversight and increase the number of inspectors.

Qatar’s efforts to comply with calls for improved material conditions in a bid to resolve the issue and fend off the unions’ more political demands which touch on the viability of a tiny minority of nationals to retain absolute control of a country in which the vast majority of its residents have no rights and are essentially viewed as guest workers are undermined by high profile labor disputes involving international soccer players.

In the latest incident, French-Algerian international Zahir Belounis, was advised earlier this month that he could leave Qatar after being banned from travelling for two years because of a dispute with his club, Al Jaish, which is owned by the Qatari military. To leave, however, he would have to sign a statement that would effectively force him to forgo two years of outstanding salary payments.

Qatar’s inter-meshed commercial and political interests are also under attack in Egypt where the toppling in July of the elected Qatar-backed Muslim Brotherhood government of President Mohammed Morsi has soured relations between Mr. Morsi’s military backed successors and the Gulf state. The Egyptian Radio and Television Union, which controls state-owned broadcasters, effectively abrogated an agreement under which Al Jazeera, the state-owned Qatari television network, had bought the exclusive rights to African soccer championship matches.

“We will not observe the rights of Al Jazeera or abide by any judiciary provisions issued in its favor, since it has not respected the decision of Egyptian judiciary system and continued the activities of Al Jazeera Live Egypt in Egypt. This will not be limited to the Ghana-Egypt game, but will also include any game the Egyptian television wishes to broadcast. No one will be able to stop us,” said the union’s head, Essam al-Amir.

Mr. Al-Amir was referring to the banning of Al Jazeera’s local affiliate because of its alleged support for the Brotherhood. Al Jazeera has vowed to sue the union for its broadcasting of a recent African championship match between Egypt and Ghana in violation of the Qatari broadcaster’s rights to the game. Qatar’s troubled relations with Algeria were reflected in a similar dispute after Algerian television broadcast a match of its national team against Burkina Faso in violation of Al Jazeera’s rights.

Egypt last month, in a further indication of souring relations, returned to Qatar $2 billion after the two countries failed to agree on terms to convert the Qatari deposit in the Egyptian central bank into a bond.

Qatar’s efforts to use sports as a pillar of its soft power and a key building block in its foreign, defense and security policy in the absence of the ability to create the hard power it would need to defend itself are further undermined by perceptions that it is backing jihadist groups in the civil war in Syria. “Qatar, noted for its ‘hyperactive’ foreign policy, is so eager to acquire clients in the region that it has shown little concern for these groups’ intensely Islamist principles,” said Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior fellow David Andrew Weinberg in a recent CNN commentary.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog.

Egyptian stage set for confrontations with ultras

By James M. Dorsey

Militant, street battle-hardened soccer fans played a key role in toppling Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and resisting the military rulers who succeeded him. Almost three years later and four months after the military removed from office Egypt’s first democratically elected president, the stage appears to be set for renewed confrontations with the fans, one of the country’s largest civic groups.

The potential for confrontation is compounded by Egypt’s 6:1 loss earlier this month of a crucial 2014 World Cup qualifier against Ghana. Opposition forces and supporters of deposed President Mohammed Morsi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, blame Egypt’s defeat on military strongman General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. "You jinxed us, el-Sisi," said Mohammed Dardeer on Facebook, describing the general as "religiously defiled" in a comment reminiscent of perceptions in Iran that blamed the Islamic republic’s soccer failures on the intense interest in the game displayed by former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 

Ghana defeated Egypt at a time that the country is deeply divided between supporters and opponents of the military that deposed President Mohamed Morsi and brutally cracked down on his Brotherhood. The coup prompted many of the military’s opponents to view the national team as representing the regime rather than the country much as militant soccer fans did under Mubarak. That earned them charges of being traitors by those who see the Brotherhood rather than the military as the greatest obstacle to resolving Egypt’s political crisis.

“When a large number of Egyptians, too many to be ignored, felt happy after our national team lost to Ghana, didn't the coup organizers ask themselves why they felt this way towards their national team? They most likely will not bother themselves to think about it, but will claim naively, ‘It is out of spite so that no victories, not even in football, will be attributed to General Al-Sisi…  Al-Sisi's Egypt is no longer the Egypt of love that celebrates victories, as tyranny and injustice cannot win; they are defeated in every aspect, whether militarily, as in 1967 (Israel’s defeat of Egypt), or on the sports field. It is ironic that one of the coup leaders called the football result a catastrophe, which was what the 1967 defeat was called.” quipped Amira Abo el-Fetouh in the Middle East Monitor.

Ghana’s stunning thrashing of Egypt did persuade the military to allow some 30,000 fans to attend the return match in an out-of-the-way Cairo stadium scheduled for November 19 despite a ban on spectators in stadia designed to avert political protests. The symbolism of Egypt’s performance – victory or defeat – in the return match weighs heavy on the game given the regime’s need to project itself more positively internationally and to counter the analogy of defeats on the military and the soccer battlefields. The symbolism is all the greater with General Al-Sisi also celebrating his birthday on November 19.

The government’s decision to open the World Cup qualifier to spectators prompted Mohammed Yussef, the manager of storied Cairo club Al Ahli SC, to demand that fans also be allowed to attend the team’s African Championship match in Cairo on November 9 against South Africa's Orlando Pirates. Al Ahli fans are among Egypt’s most militant and have been in the frontlines of the country’s major protests in recent years. "We need fans to attend this very important match. Ahli is battling for the reputation of Egyptian football," Mr. Yussef said in a reference to the Ghanaian humiliation of the Egyptian national team.

But even without politics intruding on Egypt’s struggle to qualify for next year’s Cup in Brazil, potential flashpoints for confrontations with militant soccer fans are emerging. A court in the Suez Canal city of Port Said this week postponed until December the retrial of 11 militant supporters of Al Masri SC sentenced for premeditated murder to jail terms ranging from 15 years to life for their role in last year’s politically loaded brawl in which 74 members of Al Ahli were killed. Last year’s sentencing to death of 21 of their colleagues sparked an uprising in Port Said and other Suez Canal cities. If the sentences against the 11 are upheld, renewed protests are likely. By the same token, a reversal could spark protests in Cairo by Al Ahli supporters.

Police last week used to tear gas to disperse hundreds of Al Ahli supporters wearing their signature red T-shirts inscribed with the words: “Ultras are not criminals.” The fans were protesting the arrest of 25 of their colleagues who allegedly had tried to storm a Cairo airport terminal as the club’s handball team returned from Morocco. A member of the Ultras White Knights, the militant support group of Al Ahli Cairo rival Al Zamalek SC, was killed by security forces earlier this month, when the group tried to storm the club’s headquarters demanding the resignation of its president.

Youth groups and soccer fans have warned that a draft protest law approved by the military-backed government that is currently being reviewed by interim president Adly Mansour paves the way for the return of the police state they had sought to destroy with the overthrow of Mr. Mubarak. The law gives security forces rather than the judiciary the right to cancel or postpone a planned protest or change its location. It obliges organizers to provide authorities in advance details of the planned protest, including the identity of the organizers and their demand. It further bans protests in within a 100 meter radius of government buildings.

In a statement, the April 6 youth movement warned: “Time will not go back to the era of rulers issuing laws to silence their opponents."

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog as well as a forthcoming book with the same title.

Soccer's Impact on Middle East Politics (JMD at WINEP)

Washington Institute for Near East Policy

PolicyWatch 2158

October 16, 2013

Featuring James M. Dorsey

Watch the video: http://washin.st/1aOkejP

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On October 15, James Dorsey, a syndicated columnist and author of the blog (and forthcoming book) "The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer," addressed a Washington Institute Policy Forum. The following is a rapporteur's summary of his remarks.

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Over the past several years, soccer fields across the Middle East and North Africa have become battlegrounds for political, gender, and labor rights, as well as issues of national, ideological, and ethnic identity. Examining the recent and historical role of militant soccer fans in Egypt, Jordan, Iran, and other countries can help shed light on where each society stands on these issues today.

Most soccer clubs in the region were established with some kind of political or ideological leaning, whether pro-colonial, pro-monarchy, nationalist, or other. In Egypt, two such clubs have had tremendous influence -- al-Ahly and Zamalek. The former was home to students who later became revolutionaries; President Gamal Abdul Nasser himself eventually led the club. In contrast, Zamalek was associated with pro-monarchy and pro-colonial movements. Today, the demography of the two fan bases has hardly changed. For example, celebrated Egyptian player Ibrahim Hassan described Zamalek as the "King's Club" in a 2010 interview, despite being born years after the overthrow of Egypt's last monarch.

The soccer pitch can also be a barometer of future events. In Jordan, statements openly critical of the royal family's corruption first gained notoriety on the soccer field. And at Saudi soccer matches, many princes are booed, pelted with various objects, and sometimes forced off the pitch entirely. Last year's removal of the head of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation was perhaps the first time a royal family member was forced to resign from a post due to public pressure.

Although soccer players themselves rarely engage in political protests, the sport evokes the kind of emotion that can spark such actions. In Iran, Tabriz's main soccer club has been a major symbol of Azerbaijani ethnic identity; most recently, it was the driving force behind demonstrations demanding reunification of Iran's East Azerbaijan province and the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. In Tehran, a ceremony held to commemorate deceased player Nasser Hejazi, who had been openly critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, turned into a mass antigovernment demonstration. Moreover, Iran's presidential elections often fall around the same time as its final World Cup qualifying matches; in some cases, celebrations of national team victories have led citizens to break social codes and hold antiregime protests.

Jihadist and theological leaders in the region look to soccer as a rallying tool well. Many Islamist mosques are affiliated with specific clubs, and militant figures such as Usama bin Laden, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh understand the role that the sport has played in recruiting followers and facilitating bonds between those who later carry out violence. At the same time, strong disagreement persists between hardline Islamist groups as to whether soccer is sanctioned under religious law. On one hand, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood considered forming its own club in 2011, while Hezbollah and other groups own and operate teams in Lebanon. On the other hand, the Somali group al-Shabab has been known to execute people just for watching soccer matches.

The sport has also been an important battleground for women's rights. Saha al-Hawari, the daughter of an Egyptian referee, worked to break down regional opposition to women's soccer by convincing families, clubs, and governments to allow women to organize their own teams. She also partnered with Jordan's Prince Ali in convincing the member states of the West Asian Football Federation to declare that women had an equal right to pursue soccer as a career.

RISE OF THE ULTRAS IN EGYPT

Around 2004-2006, passionate soccer fans in the Middle East connected with like-minded groups around the world who embraced absolute commitment to their clubs. These fans, called Ultras, saw players and coaches as opportunistic or corrupt; this and other factors spurred them to develop an especially strong sense of ownership over their clubs.

The growing influence of the Ultras challenged the power of some regimes, but also presented them with opportunities. Leaders such as Ahmadinejad, former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and former Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali sought close public association with national teams in order to harness their massive popularity. Mubarak in particular used the sport to deflect attention from government mismanagement and manipulate national emotions.

Meanwhile, Egypt's Ultras defiantly claimed ownership over their clubs, and by 2007, they were clashing with security forces on a weekly basis, whether at the stadium or elsewhere. By 2011, they represented tens of thousands of undereducated, unemployed young men who resented the regime and saw an opportunity to respond. Once the revolution began, Ultras played a key role in breaking the barrier of fear for the masses -- they approached Egyptians who had never spoken out against the government, brought them to demonstrations in Tahrir Square, and pressured them to remain once security forces cracked down.

Following Mubarak's ouster, the Ultras lost much of their public influence. Yet the February 2012 stadium brawl that killed seventy-four in Port Said reignited empathy toward the Ultras, sparking revolts in cities along the Red Sea and Suez Canal.

QATAR'S WORLD CUP CONTROVERSY

While other nations tend to bid on hosting the World Cup in order to project influence, create opportunities for their citizens, and improve infrastructure, Qatar's focus in seeking the 2022 Cup was security. After Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Qatar learned that it could not rely on the Saudi defense umbrella. And despite importing massive amounts of weapons and foreign personnel to staff its armed forces, the small emirate still lacks the hard power needed to defend itself. Soccer therefore represents a valuable soft-power tool and a boon to national security.

Yet Doha's successful World Cup campaign has been subjected to intense scrutiny. Although the country has major domestic issues, especially regarding labor, much of the controversy surrounding its bid has stemmed from envy and prejudice. Qataris did not expect the deluge of criticism they have received. After all, many in the international community remained silent for years regarding concerns about foreign workers in Qatar; powerful international trade federations did not truly assert themselves until after the country's bid gained momentum. In any case, the emirate is attempting to address these labor concerns, partnering with source countries such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to make sure migrants are not being exploited by middlemen.

Meanwhile, dismal attendance in Qatari soccer stadiums has prompted discussion of reform. Knowing that they are only temporary residents, the country's numerous foreign workers are less likely to become passionate fans, and many citizens are uninterested in supporting government-owned soccer clubs. This has spurred talk of transferring ownership from the state to publicly held companies. More broadly, the Qatari government is perhaps the first to try building a complete sports industry -- including sports medicine and sports security -- from the ground up. In doing so, it has tied sports to the emirate's burgeoning national identity.

The reforms being contemplated in Qatar may eventually spread to other Persian Gulf states with similarly unsustainable demographic challenges. For now, though, soccer's role in the Gulf will continue to create controversy. For example, FIFA may have erred in appointing Bahrain's Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa as president of the Asian Football Confederation despite his crackdown on athletes who participated in antigovernment protests. Yet there were really no good alternatives for the position.

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This rapporteur's summary was prepared by Jeremy Brinster.

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RSIS presents the following commentary US Freezing of Military Aid to Egypt: How Much of a Dent? 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. 195/2013 dated 16 October 2013 US Freezing of Military Aid to Egypt: How Much of a Dent? By James M. Dorsey Synopsis The decision by the Obama administration to freeze military aid deprives the Egyptian military of its favourite toys but does little to weaken its military capability. It further strains relations with key US allies in the Gulf, and highlights Washington’s difficulty in balancing its twin goals of stability and democratisation in the Middle East and North Africa. Commentary THE OBAMA administration’s decision to impose sanctions on Egypt’s military- appointed government following the killing of 51 anti-military protestors in Egypt illustrates the US’ limited leverage on one of its closest allies in the Middle East and North Africa. It also reflects its difficulty in striking a balance between acknowledging that the region has entered into an era of messy transition and maintaining close ties to its counter-revolutionary allies such as Saudi Arabia. Washington had refrained in the past three months to define as a coup the military’s overthrow of Egypt’s only democratically-elected president and brutal suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood that left more than 1,000 people dead, to avoid being legally obliged to cut off aid. Reinforcing worries about US stance The aid freeze comes on the heels of the announcement of a November date for the start of court proceedings against ousted president Mohamed Morsi. It is likely to reinforce Saudi and Israeli fears that Washington is steering a dangerous course not only by its perceived support for fundamental change of the region’s established order but also by its willingness to engage with revolutionary Iran, seen by Arab conservatives as a threat to their national security. In anticipation of the US sanctions, Egyptian interim President Adly Mansour secured pledges for continued support from Saudi Arabia and other cash-rich Gulf states that have already funded his government to the tune of US$12 billion. In advance of the coup against Morsi, Saudi Arabia had already assured the Egyptian military that it would compensate for any loss of US economic and financial aid. The Gulf’s support has kept the post-Morsi government afloat but does little to address Egypt’s festering, structural economic problems nor does it offer the prospect of substituting military hardware for what is the world’s 14th largest  armed forces. Little impact For now, that is unlikely to matter much. The Egyptian military, battling a rising insurgency in the Sinai, like its Gulf allies has little interest in tinkering with Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel - in retaliation for the sanctions. In longer economic terms however, Gulf cash makes Egypt less inclined to embrace painful economic reforms that can put the country on a sustainable path of economic growth and ensure a more equitable economic development that benefits the population at large rather than a minority. In military terms, Egypt, with some 4,000 tanks and 240 F-16 jets and a budget of $4.21 billion in 2012, is hardly in dire need of additional hardware. Rather US military aid served to feed the Egyptian armed forces’ appetite for sophisticated American hardware, secure jobs in its military industrial complex and guarantee hundreds of millions of dollars in business for American defence contractors. Ironically, US military aid also reinforced the military’s position as a force beyond the control of the government - a fact that has come to haunt the country in its now stalled effort to escape autocracy and move towards a more liberal society. The expansion of the state-owned productive sector enabled the military to gain access to raw materials that had been intended for the manufacturing of subsidised goods for the poorer, lower ranks of society. US aid that kicked in after Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel primarily opened up business opportunities for serving and retired officers, who consequently were often focused on their economic rather than military interests. A secretive monopoly The military’s secretive commercial empire and monopoly in certain sectors expanded from defence manufacturing into consumer products such as washing machines, refrigerators and televisions, tourism facilities, soccer pitches, agriculture, livestock, butane gas, slaughterhouses and metal sheeting for construction projects as well as services and land reclamation projects. Often poorly managed and commercially inefficient, military-owned companies dominate the markets for water, olive oil, cement, construction, hotels and gasoline. They account for anywhere between eight and 45 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. The ministry, which has 40,000 civilian employees, earns an estimated US$345 million in annual revenues.   The military’s economic empire has allowed it to fund the government when necessary to achieve its political goals. It injected US$1 billion in 2012 into the central bank to ease the country’s cash shortage at a time that the military was in government in the first 18 months after the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak by a popular revolt. Food riots in 2008 prompted military bakeries to distribute bread. The move reflected the military’s ability to supply at a low cost basic goods that were becoming increasingly expensive as a result of economic liberalisation including the floating of the Egyptian pound. “This is why the army is investing in other businesses, such as foodstuff and garments, to generate income,” assistant defence minister Major General Mahmoud Nasr said last year. Any suggestion that the cut-off of US military aid could push the military to finally embrace economic reform is made moot  by the influx of Gulf cash. It is unlikely to be persuaded of the need to create a more level playing field, abolish its ability to dictate to Egypt’s business elite what commercial activities they can and cannot develop, shrink its commercially inefficient empire, and endorse privatisation.   It nonetheless signals limits to US willingness to endorse autocratic rule that fails to uphold some measure of respect for human rights and more equitable economic development. James M. Dorsey is Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog and a forthcoming book with the same title. ________________________________________ 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 hereto subscribe to the Centre's publications.

Middle East's Sunni-Shiite divide spills on to the soccer pitch

By James M. Dorsey

Sectarian divisions fuelling conflict across the Middle East have spilt on to the soccer pitch with Iraq’s decision to boycott the Gulf Cup and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) warning the Iraqi government not to interfere in the game.

It is hard to separate the divisions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims that governments in Bahrain and Syria have used to counter popular uprisings and that Saudi Arabia employs to stem the region’s tidal wave of discontent and counter Iran in a struggle for regional hegemony from the soccer spat that has erupted in recent days.

Relations between Iraq and Saudi Arabia have been strained ever since Iraq’s Shiite majority gained power after the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s minority Sunni rule. Saudi Arabia accuses Iraq of maintaining close ties to Iran and supporting the embattled government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Bahrain charges that Iran instigated the popular uprising on the island in 2011 that was brutally squashed by its Sunni minority rulers with the help of the kingdom.

Politics have further been embedded in the tournament’s Arabic name Kaas El Khaleej El Arabi or Arabian Gulf Cup to counter Iran’s identification of the region as the Persian Gulf. In a spat in July, the Iranian football federation, whose own top league, the Persian Gulf League, adheres to the Islamic republic’s position in the war of semantics, responded sharply to the UAE renaming its premier league as the Arabian Gulf League. The Iranians blocked the transfer of Iranian players to UAE clubs and broke the contracts of those who had already moved.

World soccer body FIFA vice president and AFC executive committee member Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein of Jordan referred to the war of words earlier this week by stressing “that it is crucial for FIFA, which comprises more than 200 richly diverse members, to be mindful and respectful of cultural sensitivities. Respect of other cultures is indeed one of the core values of our beautiful game,” Prince Ali said. His remarks came after FIFA referred to the Gulf on its website as the Persian Gulf in what Prince Ali called a “misunderstanding.”

The prince went a step further by saying “that it is about time FIFA embrace the Arabic language as an official language, spoken by more than 300 million people in twenty-two Arab countries; all of which are members of the football governing body.”

To be sure, soccer associations in the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that groups the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman alongside the kingdom stand on solid ground in arguing that they moved the Gulf Cup scheduled for late next year or early 2015 in which Iraq and Yemen also compete from the southern Iraqi city of Basra to Jeddah for security reasons. Iraq has in recent months been rocked by a series of suicide attacks and bombings reminiscent of the sectarian violence several years ago. Similarly, Iraq has a history of political interference in the affairs of the Iraqi Football Association (IFA).

In addition to security concerns, the GCC based its decision on assertions that Iraq had failed to complete the necessary infrastructure for the Cup. In announcing its boycott of the Cup, which is widely popular in the Gulf and fiercely contested, Iraq said it had poured a huge sum of money into preparing for the tournament. It pointed out that Gulf states had agreed in 2007 to hold it in Basra, at a time when the security situation was worse than it is now.

"It has become manifestly clear that the reason for moving the (tournament) from Basra to Jeddah is political and taken under intense pressure from Saudi. Saudi Arabia and others are conspiring behind closed doors against Iraq and the sports (of Iraq)," the Iraqi youth and sport ministry said.  In his weekly television address, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri A-Maliki charged that the deprival of Iraq of its right to host the Cup was "prejudiced against the rights of the Iraqi people."

The AFC’s statement was prompted by the fact that it was the Iraqi government rather than the IFA that announced Iraq’s boycott of the Cup. The AFC said that it had asked the IFA to explain alleged government involvement in the association’s decision to boycott.

The request is ironic in a part of the world in which soccer, including AFC President Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa’s ’s own association, is controlled by ruling elites and serves to reinforce the political grip of regimes and prevent the pitch from becoming a rallying point for dissent. A member of the Bahraini ruling family, Sheikh Salman, has refused to stand up for national team soccer players who were denounced, arrested and tortured for participating in the peaceful anti-government protests.

The AFC said neither it nor FIFA would tolerate government interference. "It's the right of the Iraq Football Association to decide on the interest of their team, fans and other stakeholders. The government should not interfere in the football affairs,” the AFC said, adding that it was asking the government “to stay away in the interest of Iraqi football."

The AFC statement followed comments by Prince Ali criticizing FIFA for banning Iraq from hosting matches. FIFA reinstated the ban in July because of the increased violence after lifting it in March. The Gulf Cup is not bound by FIFA decisions given that the world body does not recognize the tournament.

Prince Ali said the ban was unfair because other countries facing similar problems were allowed to play at home. This year’s Gulf Cup that was also supposed to be hosted by Iraq was moved to Bahrain.

“I would like to emphasize that Iraq should be able to host friendly matches, whether in the South or the North. There are other countries facing similar issues but are given the green light, there is no reason to exclude Iraq at this point,” Prince Ali said.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog and a forthcoming book with the same title.

Turkish soccer’s financial crisis potentially sharpens political divide

By James M. Dorsey

Financially stressed Turkish soccer clubs are becoming pawns in the political struggle between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and militant soccer fans who rank prominently among his detractors as soccer pitches and university campuses emerge as major battlefields between the government and its detractors.

Critics of Mr. Erdogan charge that the prime minister is seeking to enlist clubs in much the same carrot-and-stick way that he tamed the media by exploiting financial vulnerabilities and turning Turkey alongside Iran and China into the country with the most journalists behind bars. The impact of Mr. Erdogan’s effort to restrict media independence and limit independent critical reporting was evident when last June television stations broadcast soap operas and penguins instead of pictures of mass anti-government protests on Istanbul’s iconic Taksim Square in which soccer fans played a prominent role.

Soccer may however be a tougher nut to crack than the media. Soccer unlike the media has militant fans determined to thwart Mr. Erdogan’s attempts to use troubled clubs to whip them into line. Fans have defied a recent government ban on the chanting of political slogans during matches, rejected attempts by clubs on instructions of the government to sign pledges to abide by the ban, and ridiculed a government public relations campaign that portrays peaceful protest as a precursor for suicide bombings.

The government has taken similar steps to pacify university campuses, including cancelling scholarships for students who had participated in the anti-government protests sparked by plans to replace Taksim’s historic Gezi Park with a shopping mall. Turkish authorities recently arrested 25 students aged 13-19 who visited Iran on suspicion of espionage and propaganda activities. While the arrests reflected tense Turkish-Iranian relations over Syria, it occurred amid a campaign to deter anti-government activity among students.

“They can try Gezi protests in universities. People should not ruin their lives, should not have criminal records,” Turkish sports minister Suat Kilic warned last month in an ironic twist given that Turkey with its history of military coups and the Erdogan government’s crackdown on the media has scores of intellectuals and journalists with police records. Among those is Mr. Erdogan himself, who spent four months in prison in the 1990s for reciting a controversial poem.

Mr. Erdogan’s ability to whip clubs into line and employ them in his confrontation with soccer fans has been enhanced by the debt burden under which Turkish teams are laboring. Bloomberg News quoted the Istanbul stock exchange as saying that short-term borrowings of storied Istanbul club Besiktas JK, its Istanbul rival and Turkish champion Galatasary SC and Black Sea club Trabzonspor FC created “uncertainty over the sustainability” of their finances. The bourse said that shareholders’ equity for each was negative.

Galatasaray is staring at $57 million of debt due in the next year as the result of the expensive acquisition of players like Didier Drogba and hiring of Coach Roberto Mancini. Even so Galatasary with a debt-to-cash ratio of 13:1 compares favorably to Trabzonspor’s ratio of 40:1 and Besiktas’ 24:1, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“If Turkish soccer isn’t reformed, institutionalized and if all goes as it has so far, Turkish soccer is doomed to hit a wall,” said soccer economist and journalist Tugrul Aksar.

The battle over freedom of expression on the pitch was being waged as Mr. Erdogan unveiled what he termed a historic democracy package that granted greater liberties but fell short of the expectations of liberals, Kurds and Orthodox Christians and seemed to run counter to concepts put forward by President Abdullah Gul, a co-founder of the prime minister’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Mr. Gul, who is gunning for the prime minister’s job, has in recent days voiced far more liberal and inclusive concepts of democracy than the majoritarian ones advocated by Mr. Erdogan. Mr. Erdogan, who has promised not to seek a fourth term as prime minister after leading the AKP to three sweeping electoral victories, is expected to run next summer for the presidency. Many analysts suspect however that he may only keep his promise if he can turn the largely ceremonial office into an executive one.

The battle for greater freedoms also occurs as Turkey braced itself for next week’s European Union progress report that was expected to take the government to task for its hard-handed handling of the Gezi Park protests, limits on the freedom of expression and freedom of press, and the deceleration of its reform process.

In a twist of irony, anthropologist Elif Babül argueshowever that EU programs designed to bring the Turkish police in line with European standards have served to enhance law enforcement’s capabilities and better package rather than reduce its disproportionate use of force. The brutal response of the police to the Gezi Park demonstrations turned a small environmental protest into mass anti-government protests with thousands of militant soccer fans on the frontline. Ms. Babül’s somber analysis suggests that violence is inevitable in future confrontations between the government and street-battle hardened soccer fans determined to stand their ground.

“My research on human rights training programs for Turkish state officials has taught me that the meetings and workshops organized to improve the capacity of Turkey to become a member of the EU are far from unproductive, useless sites of whitewashing that help the government continue business as usual. On the contrary, these workshops, projects, and other tools of harmonization actually serve as platforms for government actors to manage the terms of EU membership, and the governmental standards that they entail,” Ms. Babül wrote.

“It is by conducting projects that state officials come to learn what these standards are really about. They are place-holders for democracy and the rule of law that are supposed to be managed strategically in order to reduce liability and perform a level of development. For instance, it is by interacting with the British police at experience-sharing meetings that the TNP officers learn what it takes to become ‘security experts,’” she went on to say.

“Rather than installing mechanisms to fight impunity within the organization, they learn that what they need is “better policing” that can be attained by building crime databases or by setting up high-tech labs to better conduct forensic investigation… Scholars who are critical of democratization and development industries have shown that programs for economic and political transition continue to produce unexpected outcomes in a variety of places, leading to more accentuated forms of exclusion, inequality, and authoritarianism. The contradictions between the stated goals and actual outcomes of these projects are inherent to the world of development,” Ms. Babül cautioned.

A just published Amnesty International report concluded that the brutal suppression of the Gezi Park protests and with it the subsequent government campaign against militant soccer fans  “significantly undermined the claims of the ruling Justice and Development Party to be delivering responsible, rights-respecting government and exposed a striking intolerance of opposing voices. The smashing of the Gezi Park protest movement has involved a string of human rights violations – many of them on a huge scale. These include: the wholesale denial of the right to peaceful assembly and violations of the rights to life, liberty and the freedom from torture and other ill-treatment. The vast majority of police abuses already look likely to go unpunished, while many of those who organized and participated in the protests have been vilified, abused – and now face prosecution on unfair or inflated charges.”

Among those facing allegedly unfair or inflated charges are 20 members of Carsi, the popular support group of Besiktas who stand accused of being members of an illegal organization. Carsi’s reply in defiance of the ban on political slogans has been to chant "everywhere is Taksim, everywhere is resistance" during matches echoing a popular June protest tune.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccerblog.

Egyptian ultras’ fight for existence is a struggle for public space

By James M. Dorsey

Militant Egyptian soccer fans, a key player in Egypt’s almost three year-old political rollercoaster, are fighting a battle for their existence in the shadow of the military’s campaign to repress the Muslim Brotherhood. At the core of the battle is the military’s desire to crack down on one of the country’s largest civic groups and assert control of stadia in advance of a resumption later this month of the country’s suspended premier league.

In a statement echoing declarations on the eve of the mass anti-government protests in 2011 that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, the Ultras White Knights (UWK) -- the militant, highly politicized, well organized and street battle hardened supporters of storied Cairo soccer club Al Zamalek SC -- stressed that it was not a political organization irrespective of the political leanings of its members. In 2011, UWK alongside its arch rival, Ultras Ahlawy, the fan group of Zamalek competitor Al Ahli SC, stressed its non-political nature but said its members were welcome to participate in the anti-Mubarak protests.

UWK’s latest statement on Facebook came as many of its members joined opponents of the armed forces and the military-backed civilian government installed after the July 3 coup against Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, to march on Tahrir Square where Egyptians where celebrating the 40^th anniversary of the 1973 war against Israel. That war restored Egyptian military pride following the routing of Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian forces and Israeli occupation of the Sinai, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967 and laid the basis for the Egyptian and Jordanian peace treaties with the Jewish state.

Security forces used tear gas on Sunday to prevent the ultras and anti-government demonstrators from reaching Tahrir. The Egyptian health ministry said at least 28 people were killed and 83 wounded. Some 200 alleged Muslim Brothers  were arrested.

UWK said it represented “the entire Egyptian people, with some members who are supportive of the revolution and others who are against it. The membership of many of our members in the Islamist current does not trouble us …. We are not an organization with a specific ideology.” 

The association of many UWK members with the Islamist movement indicates the degree to which the club’s fan base has evolved from the first half of the last century when Zamalek was closely aligned with the former British colonial authority, the monarchy that was overthrown in 1952 by Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Egypt’s upper classes. Its rivalry with Al Ahli is rooted in the fact that Ahli was founded in 1907 as the club of the nationalists and republicans.

UWK leaders said they had issued the statement to counter efforts to undermine their credibility by identifying them as a group with Mr. Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood. Their statement came amid a campaign in pro-military and pro-government media asserting that the ultras, who pride themselves on their financial independence, were financially beholden to political interests. The UWK like other Egyptian ultras as well as their counterparts in other parts of the world position themselves as not political despite their ant-authoritarian bent and hostility to law enforcement in a bid to reduce their vulnerability.

The UWK insisted that its focus was support for its club. Their militant support led to years of confrontation with security forces in the stadia during the Mubarak era in what amounted to a battle for control of the pitch in a country that sought to control all pubic space. The UWK and other ultra groups constituted the only group that challenged the government’s right to control public spaces. They did so in the belief that as the only true supporters of the club – they see players as hired guns and managers as corrupt pawns of the regime – they were the real owners of the stadia. “We were confronted by repressive regimes just because we dreamt about living,” UWK said. It said its “battle for survival… (was) our motivation for chanting for freedom.”

The group charged that the military and the government were cloaking themselves in the mantle of the 2011 revolution to justify another round of repression. The military has arrested some 2,000 Muslim Brother, including much of the Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership among whom Mr. Morsi, who faces multiple charges and closed down pro-Brotherhood media. At least 1,000 people have been killed since early July in the military’s suppression of the group.

The UWK said it was not intimidated by last month’s death of 18-year-old UWK member Amr Hussein who was killed by security forces when the group tried to storm the Zamalek club’s headquarters in support of its demand that club president Mahmoud Abbas resign. “Bloodshed will not deter us,” the UWK said. The group vowed earlier to avenge Mr. Hussein’s death. The ultras’ influence is visible the music and chants the pro-Morsi protesters have adopted in recent weeks.

“Nothing has changed, we’re still the terrorists we were before the revolution...we are still demanding what is right and fighting for it, laying down our own lives to fight some ignorant people, for whom suppression is a way of life and whose imagination is sick. Amr Hussein, we restore your rights or die like you,” the group said, in a reference to the Mubarak regime’s attempt to criminalize them.

Implicitly the UWK was also referring to the death of 74 Ultras Ahlawy members in a politically loaded brawl in Port Said in February 2012. The brawl was widely seen as an attempt by the security forces and the military which at the time was in government to teach the ultras a lesson not only because of their key role in the toppling of Mr. Mubarak but also their subsequent opposition to the military.

“It doesn't matter how hard they hit us. We have been steeled in resisting repression and abuse. We have demonstrated our resolve,” a UWK member said.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccerblog.

Welcome Andrew Stauber

Honored that Andrew Stauber, an attorney at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr in Boston and a former sports law student of mine at Boston College Law School, has contributed an outstanding post on the role of Title IX in the private funding of Navy and Air Force football teams during the government shutdown.

Title IX requires equal access . . . even during the federal government shutdown

The government shutdown is having a far reaching impact across the country, and unfortunately, not even sports fans are not immune from its effects.  Due to the shutdown, the Department of Defense announced the suspension all intercollegiate athletic competitions involving the service academies, including Army, Navy, and Air Force.  Absent a shutdown ending miracle, speculation abounded yesterday that the Air Force-Navy and Army-Boston College football game would be canceled.  There is good news, however, for the fans of those football teams: the games will go on, per ESPN's Brett McMurphy.  McMurphy reported that "nongovernment funding" would cover the costs of these games, allowing the Falcons and the Midshipmen, the Black Knights and the Eagles to battle it out on the football field Saturday.

But what about the other sports teams at the academies? And specifically, what about the women's teams at these schools? Yesterday, both Army and Navy canceled women's soccer games against Colgate and at American, respectively.  This is certainly unfortunate for those teams, as well as for the other non-football men's teams that have had events or games canceled. 

More than just being unfortunate, another question crossed my mind: does this football-only preservation violate Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972?  Title IX states, in part, that "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."  When it comes to sports (and other extra-curriculars), Title IX requires that men and women have equal opportunity to participate.  The Department of Education evaluates schools' athletic programs to determine whether there is equality for men and women, and specifically considers the "scheduling of games and practice time" in this evaluation.  Just because a school spends more money on a men's team than a women's team does not necessarily mean that it violates Title IX, but the law’s regulations state that the Assistant Secretary for the Civil Rights Department "may consider the failure to provide necessary funds for teams for one sex in assessing equality of opportunity for members of each sex." 

Accordingly, despite the extenuating circumstances created by the shutdown, and through no fault of any of the athletes, there's a possibility that the generous support for football programs could create complications for the academies under Title IX.  This concept is not altogether new in college athletics - for years legal scholars have warned that a pay-for-play system that exclusively targets football and men's basketball players would not be compatible with a school's Title IX obligations. 

All schools, including the academies, are required to have a Title IX compliance officer.  I imagine each of the officers has considered this issue in much greater depth than I have, and perhaps they have decided that there is no or minimal risk under Title IX.  By no means am I suggesting that academies should cancel their Saturday football games.  I think it's great that the academies and Boston College (and perhaps some generous donors) have found a way to make these games happen.  For many reasons, most of which are more important than sports, I hope the government shutdown ends soon.  In that case, all academies' sports teams can continue with their regularly scheduled matches.  Alternatively, hopefully the non-revenue sports will find a way, or the money, to keep their schedule moving forward.  Absent those outcomes, all schools, including the service academies, need to remember that Title IX remains in effect even if the federal government, including the Office of the Assistant Secretary for the Civil Rights Department, is shut down.

New Roadmap For Challenging NCAA 'No Pay' Rules and NFL/NBA Age Requirements

It is with great pleasure to announce the publication of a new, short law review article entitled "How Young American Athletes Can Best Challenge a Bureaucracy that Prevents Them from Earning a Living."   This new law review article provides a concise summary of how young American athletes can best challenge the NCAA 'no-pay' rules and the NFL/NBA age requirements.  This article also recommends favorable circuits for challenging each set of rules.

For readers who are interested in a far longer antitrust analysis of the NCAA 'no pay' rules, a current draft of my treatise of amateurism and antitrust law is available for download here.  That treatise will be published in the Fall 2013 edition of Case Western Reserve University Law Review.

The EA Settlement and Eligibility

Last March, in an Open Letter to College Athletes, I opined that as college athletes’ names and likenesses become increasingly more valuable for use in commercial products, sellers of commercial products and services may become more willing to use and profit from the identities without permission in exchange for the cost to settle the athlete’s publicity rights lawsuit.  This results in a pseudo-licensing fee; in other words, the settlement operates as an ex post licensing transaction that was not negotiated and paid ex ante.   The issue then becomes whether any legitimate purpose is served by burdening athletes with such unnecessary, time-consuming, and costly litigation.  Why should athletes not be permitted under NCAA rules to license the use of their names and likenesses in commercial products and receive the substantive equivalent payment that they otherwise would receive in litigation suing the seller for violating the athlete’s right of publicity?

As far as eligibility is concerned, I do not know how the NCAA could legally sanction college athletes for collecting damages in a court of law through the enforcement of their own property interests against third parties who commercially exploit them without the athlete’s permission (i.e. without a license).  As third-party beneficiaries of the NCAA bylaws, college athletes would have standing to challenge such an eligibility decision on the grounds of arbitrary and capricious enforcement.  The first question would be, how is the NCAA's endorsement rule rationally related to the preservation of amateurism?  Given how commercialized the big business of college sports has become and the increasing exploitation of college athletes, I am not convinced that if the NCAA faced a Jeremy Bloom-like challenge to its endorsement rule today that a Colorado state court or a court in a different jurisdiction would have much sympathy for the NCAA and its assertion that the endorsement rule prevents college athletes in big-time college sports from becoming "billboards for commercialism."  The recent rulings of the Third and Ninth Circuits not only suggest a much more skeptical view of amateurism principles that would allow commercial entities to profit off the backs of the unpaid labor that makes those profits possible but also signify a movement towards courts' recognition of college athletes receiving compensation for the use of their identities in commercial products and services.  Secondly, the discipline or suspension of a college athlete for exercising his property rights in a court of law would likely be viewed as arbitrary and capricious enforcement and a violation of public policy.

Manziel’s Precedent: can current NCAA players collect damages from the EA Sports settlement without risking eligibility?

Last Thursday, EA Sports and College Licensing Company reached a preliminary settlement in the "Ed O’Bannon" class action lawsuit over the use of college athletes' names, images, and likenesses.  The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed, but reports suggest that the figure could be upwards of $50 million.  Not surprisingly, EA Sports announced that it will no longer produce its popular “NCAA Football” franchise beginning in 2014.  If the settlement is approved, more than 100,000 former and current student-athletes may be eligible for varying amounts of compensation depending on the specifics of each class member’s claim, including the prevalence of the individual in the game.  

It is well known that NCAA rules prohibit student-athletes from profiting off their name while in school and violators of this rule risk the loss of NCAA eligibility (for student-athletes) and potential sanctions (for member institutions), but now, some current student-athletes are in a position to receive a damages award stemming from the commercial use of their image, even though they are still enrolled in school.  The NCAA has thus far declined to comment on whether current student-athletes will be entitled to collect damages without risking their eligibility until after the terms of the settlement are revealed.  However, last year, Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel likely set a precedent that will allow these current NCAA student-athletes to recover damages without jeopardizing their eligibility. 

In the Fall of 2012 after a series of breakout performances, Manziel trademarked his nickname “Johnny Football.”  Later that same season, a vendor began selling t-shirts with the phrase “Keep Calm and Johnny Football.”  Manziel’s company, JMAN2 Enterprises LLC, filed a suit for damages as well as an injunction calling for the vendor to stop producing the t-shirts.  The suit posed the question of whether a current NCAA player could be entitled to collect legal damages for the misappropriation of likeness and retain eligibility.  The NCAA ruled that Manziel would be entitled to retain his eligibility and recover damages provided the trademark violation was not an intentional violation aimed at funneling money to the player.  While the O'Bannon/EA Sports case is not a trademark case, the NCAA test established in the Manziel ruling should apply because both cases center on the misappropriation of a student athlete’s proprietary interest.  Whereas Manziel can be awarded damages for the misappropriation of his intellectual property, current students would be entitled to compensation for the misappropriation of their names, images, and likeness.  The NCAA has refused to comment on the ability of current student-athletes to receive settlement money, but the precedent of the Manziel ruling will make it difficult for the Association to deny student-athletes’ recovery.  As a result, current NCAA student-athletes may be able to receive compensation from the O'Bannon/EA Sports settlement without risking their eligibility, even though they would not have otherwise been able to do so under NCAA Bylaws.