A Decade of Defiance and Dissent: A Wake-up Call forSports

By James M. Dorsey

The wave of popular defiance and demonstrations across the Middle East and North Africa parallels twidespread protest acrosss the globe from Latin America to Asia against sports organisations’ mismanagement and mega-events. It is driven by lack of confidence in institutions that have failed to root out corruption and meet demands for justice, dignity and inclusiveness. Huge expenditure on sports mega events like the 2014 World Cup in Brazil are catalysts and platforms for protest; soccer fans often play key roles in the protests. As a result, sports associations like governments should embrace the change that protestors demand or risk being swept away by an irresistable tide.

The year  2011 was marked by a wave of defiance that dispatched  experts’ credibility to the garbage heap of history. . Common wisdom held  that Arabs were too wealthy and  afraid of their autocrats to actively demand change; Russians were apathetic and had a soft spot for the concept of a neo-czar; India’s middle class was politically too disengaged; West Europeans were too old; Americans were oblivious to differences of class and Chinese party apparatchiks too effective at repressing dissent.

The Arabs in 2011; the Americans,  Russians,  Europeans,  Indians and  Chileans in 2012; and the Egyptians,  Turks,  Brazilians and  Indonesians in 2013 proved the experts wrong. They heralded what promises to be a decade of defiance, dissent and popular  demand for change;  in which people are willing and able to assert their deep discontent in  new and powerful ways.

Global sports governance is not immune to the wave of protests witness Brazil’s demonstrations against the 2014 World Cup, this year’s protests during Bahrain’s F1 and the key role that militant soccer fans played in the overthrow in 2011 of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and the recent rejection of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s majoritarian governance  as well protests over the politics underlying the country's soccer matchfixing scandal. If anything, the problems of global sports governance mirror issues underlying the more general wave of protests.

What has sparked protest ranges from public transportation costs and the fate of iconic trees to lack of economic opportunity and the choking grip of autocrats. Yet, underlying the wave of protests are common factors that concern not only political leaders and economic elites but also global sports managers. Among them:  

• a lack of confidence in existing institutions, arising from
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• a perception of political, economic and social (sports) leadership that fails to listen and are not held to account for wrong decisions, misguided policies and  improper  or mis-management;  
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• failure to root out corruption at all levels of political, economic and social leadership, and 
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• a perception that economic progress has failed to ensure that infrastructure as well as health and education facilities do not trail the lifting of huge numbers out of poverty; and
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• a demand for social justice, dignity and inclusiveness.

“FIFA rules nations”

The fact that virtually all protests and popular revolts are urban middle class in nature and  claim  a stake in shaping their urban environment and cultural identity has far-reaching consequences for sports managers and regional and  global sports associations and the staging of mega events. The references of various Brazilian protesters to the 2014 World Cup should constitute a wake-up call, such as:

• “The World Cup perpetuates our urban crisis. We have become disenfranchised consumers.
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• “We live in cities that operate on profit in which residents are not consulted.  People are fed up with not having a say.”
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• “The real president of our country is FIFA. FIFA comes to our country, sets up a state within a state, and leaves.”

  Lack of confidence in institutions is reinforced by the frequent initial knee-jerk deployment of police and security forces to control if not quell protest in which sports fans and particularly soccer fans are often in the forefront. The use of indiscriminate police force swells protests that frequently are initially focused on a specific issue. It lifts the lid on far broader, deeply felt, pent-up anger and frustration and as demonstrated in the case of Brazil and Turkey makes it difficult to put the lid  back on.  Sports associations like FIFA  perceived as an elitist, closed old boy network,  that fails to  tackle issues of corruption and mismanagement, enforce its governance rules and maintain independence from political authority,  invariably become institutions whose credibility is questioned.

In addition, the emergence of mega events like the World Cup and the Olympic Games as platforms for campaigns for all kinds of rights – human, labour, gender, national, ethnic and religious – increasingly empowers activists, puts regional and international sports associations in the front line and puts the associations as well as nations at risk of reputational damage. This year’s Formula One public relations disaster in Bahrain, trade union pressure on Qatar, controversy over Israel’s hosting of the FIFA Under-21 finals, last year’s successful International Olympic Committee (IOC) campaign that forced three reluctant Muslim nations for the first time to field women athletes at a global sporting event and the recent election of a Bahraini soccer executive as president of the troubled Asian Football Confederation prove the point.

The responses of Qatar, Bahrain, Israel and Saudi Arabia have failed to gain them the upper hand in popular perception and coverage in the media;  both of which are dominated by activists highlighting their failure to adhere to international standards of human, labour and/or gender rights. Worse, hosting mega events and nominating officials for regional and international office, has reinforced the negative perceptions they were trying to dispel.  Their failure has strengthened calls for such rights to become key criteria in the awarding of future mega-events. It has also rendered the separation of sports and politics a fiction and focused attention on the need to develop systems that acknowledge the relationship but eliminate conflict of interest,to ensure that it is not abused for partisan political interests on an individual, national, regional and international scale.

Sports governance: A sound policy prescription

If reputational damage and failure to achieve a key goal is a host nation’s primary risk, activists may see such failure  as a moral victory. Similarly, they are likely to claim any progress such as an improvement of workers’ material labour and living condition as a success even if they are unable to meet their ultimate goal. The message for host countries and sports associations is: mega events constitute a platform for showcasing both a country’s progress  as well as its warts. The question potential hosts have to ask themselves is what price are they willing to pay in terms of reputational risk if they are not willing or able to address their vulnerabilities. That question is all the more acute as international sports bodies like FIFA are under pressure to make human, labour and women’s rights part of the criteria for awarding events. In doing so, they are likely to raise the barrier for a country’s chance of gaining the opportunity to host a major event.

Proactive regional and international sports associations would do well to have their ear close to the ground  to understand a swelling global trend that defines legitimacy, social justice and dignity as greater inclusivity, transparency and accountability. Understanding this trend and its consequences as it spills into the streets of the world’s capitals and major urban centers involves a paradigm shift in sports management, including:

• A recognition that sports and politics are inextricably intertwined. Denial of this fact of life undermines credibility and flies in the face of reality. That reality is evident at every twist of the road from the direct involvement of rulers, politicians and governments in the boards and executive committees of regional and international sports associations to the use of mega events by nations and governments to the role that global governing bodies play in the legitimization of rulers. That recognition should lead to the creation of a charter and/or code of conduct that governs the relationship between sports and politics;
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• A revisiting of the criteria for the awarding of mega events. This would involve inclusion of international human, labour and gender standards in the awarding criteria as well as greater public engagement in the national and urban decision making process, enhanced transparency of the infrastructural requirements a host has to meet and the terms of the agreement between the sports association and the host. Sports associations will have to balance the infrastructural requirements of a tournament with the long-term needs, cultural identity and popular aspirations of host cities and ensure that its demands are in line and balanced with overall urban and municipal policies rather than at the expense of. They will have to also revisit their positioning as supra-national entities that are laws unto themselves.
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• A restructuring of regional and international sports associations that is governed by regulation of the relationship between sports and politics, takes grassroots into considerations and ensures that grassroots voices are heard, and enshrines independent oversight, monitoring and auditing that gives credibility to combatting and preventing abuse of power, mismanagement and corruption

This is a tall order that entails not only structural adjustment but also a shift in the mental paradigm and a cultural transition. It is not an agenda that can be achieved with a stroke of the pen and will likely take significant time. It is likely to be a process that at times will be bumpy. Bumps will include sports-related protests like those in Brazil and often involve organized sports fans. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff ensured that her government was in front of the curve by recognising the legitimacy of non-violent protests, describing them as an enhancement of her country’s democracy and responding to protesters’ complaints. Her proactive approach like that of Moroccan King Mohammed VI to the Arab Spring demonstrations in his country offers sports associations and others a model. Others like Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and various deposed Arab leaders provide cautionary tales.

The late economist Albert Hirschman argued that protest can lead to “a new, more cohesive democratic order being produced.” Recognition of the fact that non-violent protest is a pillar of a democratic, open and pluralistic society places the risk of failing to have one’s ear to the ground into perspective. Protest is no longer simply a disruptive element that despoils a major event. Instead, events by becoming platforms in effect contribute to the development of healthy societies. They are nevertheless also events that frequently could have been avoided and made explosions of pent-up anger and frustration less likely if public sentiment had been taken into account earlier.

The decade between 9/11 and the first popular Arab revolts in 2011 illustrates both the clarifying effect that protest has, even in its most violent form, and the risk in failing to recognize and acknowledge simmering discontent. That illustration contains lessons not only for governments but also for managers at all levels, including those of regional and national sports associations.

Proactive anticipation rather than defensive reaction

In the immediate aftermath of the Al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001, government officials from then US President George W. Bush down, think tanks pundits and the media blamed the attacks on widespread discontent with repressive rule in the Middle East. That assumption was reinforced by recognition that a policy that gave priority to stability by supporting autocratic regimes rather than to ideals of dignity, justice and economic opportunity had created the circumstances that made the 9/11 attacks possible.

In response, much attention was focused in the wake of 9/11 on the Arab street, the code word for public opinion in the Middle East and North Africa. The expectation was that the Arab street would express its aspirations. Attention to the street diminished when it did not live up to the expectations of officials, analysts and journalists who began to deride those who stressed the need to be more attentive to Arab public opinion. Like the autocratic regimes against whom they revolted, Western officials, analysts and journalists wrote off a whole generation and class.

In reality however, while the change in mood in Western capitals was a reaction to the fact that the Arab street did not conform to the West’s time frame, nothing on the ground had changed. Pent-up anger and frustration had not  dissipated.  On the contrary, it continued to fester and boil at the surface. It was noticeable to anyone who put his ear to the ground. The only thing that was not predictable was what would cause that anger to boil over and when that might happen.

It should have been clear from the outset that once Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi's suicide on the doorstep of the governor’s office  went viral, his cry was not simply one for justice, freedom and economic opportunity but, first and foremost, an act of desperation in the face of humiliation, a cry for dignity that resonated with the masses across the region as well as around the globe. From Sao Paulo to Istanbul and from New York to Cairo the outcry was against the indignity of crony capitalism and neo-liberalism which ensured that rules are rigged in favour of elites,  to the disadvantage of the middle classes. For Bouazizi and the millions in the Middle East and North Africa whom he inspired, it was the daily humiliation and police brutality meted out by repressive autocratic officials and their cronies that dominated their ordinary lives

Theirs is a massive denunciation of years of political and institutional decay, the voices of long-standing criticism of the status quo as well as the generational desire for political change and safeguards of democratic freedoms rather than the expression of new ideas. At times, the denunciation is preceded by the emergence of political groupings that are as much characterized by discontent with the status quo as they are by ideology. In Egypt it was the Kefaya (Enough) movement that pioneered the use of social media, mastered the art of symbolic demonstrations and carved out space in the media; in the United States it was the Tea Party, a populist and libertarian movement that opposed the US Troubled Asset Relief Progrm; in India the uproar towards corrupt telecommunications licence auctions; and  in Europe the electoral turn towards far right-wing and green political parties.

In virtually all cases – Occupy Wall Street, the anti-Putin demonstrations in Russia and the series of revolts sweeping the Middle East and North Africa -- the instigators were more often than not young, middle class and educated with no prior political affiliations driven by a globally shared perception that their political and economic systems were broken. Unlike the 1989 demise of communism their protests are sparked by a sense of disintegration across society not just at the system’s nerve center. Perhaps the most apt comparison for 2011 as a Year of Protest is the 1848 revolt in Paris that abolished the monarchy and established the French republic. Like in 1848 when a small act of protest mushroomed into a mass movement fuelled by technological advance of the time -- telegraphy, railroads and printing presses – current protests are enabled by the Internet, social media and technology that circumvents censorship and enables free communications.

In the Arab world, it was the cannon fodder – the Mohamed Bouazizis or shabab (youth) of the Middle East and North Africa – that lost the most blood in revolts and displayed the most bravery because they had the least to lose. While religion may be a major influence in their lives, electoral politics despite the emergence of Islamist forces, has not provided the channel for the pursuit of their political ambitions. 

That is largely because they, like many protesters across the globe, are driven by what they don’t want rather than any concept of what  they want as is evident in  Egypt and Turkey.

The protests represent an irreversible trend despite the fact that protest and revolution more often than not follow Lenin’s principle of one step forward, two steps back. Nonetheless, for governments as well as for sports associations the choice is proactively embracing the kind of changes that address protesters’ fundamental concerns or being taken by surprise and possibly being swept away by a tidal wave that has proven to be irresistible.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg, and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Egypt’s Third Way: A Blend of Islamism and Militarism

RSIS presents the following commentary Egypt’s Third Way: A Blend of Islamism

and Militarism 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. 144/2013 dated 1 August 2013

Egypt’s Third Way: A Blend of Islamism and Militarism

By James M. Dorsey

Synopsis

Deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s failure in government may produce

neither a return to former President Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian police state nor a

pluralistic democracy but a regime shaped by a new generation of military commanders

whose vision constitutes a blend of Islamism and militarism laced with

anti-Americanism.

Commentary

THE UNITED STATES quest for stability in the Middle East and North Africa that

amounted to support for autocratic regimes at the expense of America’s projection of its

democratic values was in part fuelled by fear. This is the fear that change in countries

like Saudi Arabia threatened to open the door to the replacement of conservative,

pro-Western rulers by military officers steeped in a vision that combined nationalism

and Islamism.

Significant elements of this vision tap into a widespread sentiment among Egyptians

and Arabs across the Middle East and North Africa and is not alien to Islamist thinking,

even if many would not want to see Islamism literally implemented. This hybrid vision

can be traced back to the emergence of the new generation of military officers in the

last two decades.

Insights from Al Sisi’s papers

A look at papers produced by Egyptian military strongman General Abdel Fattah Al

Sisi and other senior officers as part of their training and education at US military

institutions suggests that the US fear may become reality. It also explains why Morsi

last year put his faith in these commanders, replacing the military’s Mubarak-era old

guard with this new crop of officers who shared his adherence to conservative and

Islamic values. And it provides a reasoning for the military’s apparent decision to not

simply remove Morsi from office but to attempt to significantly weaken, if not destroy,

the Muslim Brotherhood.

In effect, the dispute between the military and the Brotherhood, like the rivalry in

Turkey between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and self-exiled cleric Fethullalh

Gulen, amounts to a struggle for power among Islamists. The difference with Egypt is

that one party to the dispute is the military, along with the security forces, the most

powerful institution in the country.

The thinking of these military officers further suggests that Saudi Arabia’s support for

the military’s ousting of Morsi was rooted in more than a shared rejection of the Muslim

Brotherhood. The kingdom and the Egyptian military have similar visions of an

authoritarian state grounded in Islamic values that maintains close relations with the US

and yet is conscious of the public’s anti-American sentiment and critical of its policies in

the Middle East.

Israeli-Palestinian peace becomes a necessity

The rise of a class of Islamist and nationalist-minded military officers in Egypt gives

urgency to renewed US attempts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute that figures

prominently in the officers’ thinking. Resolving the dispute would potentially remove a

key irritant in US-Arab and US-Muslim relations and put those relationships on a new

footing. Despite widespread pessimism, US negotiators are banking on the fact the Arab

uprisings make peace more important for both Israel and the Palestine Authority.

Also the renewed peace effort is backed by a majority of Arab states, Hamas is

weakened by Morsi’s downfall and a resolution of the dispute would enable Israel to

significantly improve its internationally tarnished image.

Palestine figured prominently in a 10,000-word paper entitled ‘the U.S. military presence

in the Middle East: Issues and Prospects" written in 2005 by General Sedky Sobhy, who

was last year appointed under Morsi as the Egyptian military’s chief-of-staff. While he was

at the US Army War College in Pennsylvania, Sobhy warned in his paper, disclosed by

Cairo-based journalist Issandr El Amrani and various other media, that unmitigated US

support for Israel was fuelling anti-Americanism and embroiling the US in a conflict with

Islamists that it would not be able to win.

Solutions to the Middle East’s security problems “will find their ideological underpinning if

the U.S. were to truly work for a permanent settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict…

Truly international cooperation, and heeding the ideological, religious, and cultural

concerns of the Arab and Muslim world, can successfully change the current course of

events,” Sobhy said. He argued further that US hostility towards the Sharia -Islamic law –

was undermining its democracy effort in the region. That effort “must have and project

political, social, cultural and religious legitimacy,” he wrote.

Reviving principles of the Caliphate

General Al Sisi, in a thesis entitled ‘Democracy in the Middle East’ written a year later

while he too was at the US War College, sounded a similar note that is not dissimilar to

the Brotherhood’s thinking. Al Sisi, widely viewed as a religious conservative with close

ties to Saudi Arabia, focused his thesis on the key role of religion in politics and

argued that democracy in the Middle East and North Africa would only take root if it

demonstrated “respect to the religious nature of the culture,” sought “public support

from religious leaders (who) can help build strong support for the establishment of

democratic systems,” and sustained “the religious base versus devaluing religion

and creating instability.”

Al Sisi asserted further that secularism “is unlikely to be favourably received by the

vast majority of Middle Easterners, who are devout followers of the Islamic faith.” He

pushed the notion that democracy needed to be informed by the ‘concept of El Kalafa,’

the earliest period of Islam that was guided by the Prophet Muhammad and the Four

Righteous Caliphs who succeeded him. The Kalafa kind of government, involving

obedience to a ruler who consults his subjects, needed to be the goal of any

government in the Middle East and North Africa, he wrote.

The military’s dilemma

Traces of the new military leadership’s thinking have been evident since the fall of

Mubarak. Al Sisi defended enforced virginity tests for female demonstrators detained

in protests against the military while it was in power in the first 17 months after the

ousting of Mubarak. He ensured that whatever constitution emerges from Egypt’s

current crisis would maintain the principle that Islamic law is Egypt's “main source of

legislation” – a demand put forward by the Salafist Nour party that supported the

Military’s ousting of Morsi. Al Sisi further thought to drive a wedge between the

Brotherhood’s leadership by reaching out to its followers.

It is a thinking that would serve to secure the military’s key interests in a future

Egypt: control of national security; independence from civilian oversight; immunity

from prosecution; maintenance of its economic empire that accounts for at least ten

percent of Egyptian gross domestic product; and preservation of its independent

relationship with the US. To do so, it will likely struggle with how to balance its

nationalist and Islamist outlook with its vested strategic and economic interest in

close ties to Washington. An Israeli-Palestinian peace would help the military

resolve its dilemma.

All in all, it is a vision that is far cry from the goals a vast number of Egyptians had

in mind when they camped out two years ago on Cairo’s Tahrir Square, forcing

Mubarak to ultimately resign. In the words of national security expert Robert

Springborg in a recent Foreign Affairs article: “If Sisi continues to seek legitimacy for

military rule by associating it with Islamism, it could prove to be a disaster for Egypt.

At the very least, it would set back the democratic cause immeasurably.”

James M. Dorsey is Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International

Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the

Institute of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog,

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

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FIFA reaffirms its role as pillar of established order

By James M. Dorsey

A recent visit by world soccer body FIFA president Sepp Blatter to the Middle East spotlighted the group’s role as a pillar of the existing political and football governance order under the guise of a fictional separation between sports and politics rather than a force for greater transparency and accountability.

To be sure, Mr. Blatter’s support during his visit of Israeli Football Association (IFA) chief Avi Luzon upheld the principle of a ban on government interference in the affairs of national soccer associations. It also demonstrated that it is a principle that works to some degree in functioning democracies but becomes a farce in autocracies where governments control governance of the game with or without the façade of formal elections.

The main thrust of Mr. Blatter’s visit was to ease Israeli restrictions that hamper Palestinian soccer. Nevertheless, his thinly veiled threat that the IFA would be suspended and the Israeli national team banned from international competitions put a halt to calls by Israeli culture and sport minister Limor Livnat for Mr. Luzon’s resignation because of an alleged conflict of interest. A committee appointed by Mr. Livnat demanded Mr. Luzon’s resignation of Luzon on the grounds that his affiliation with soccer club Maccabi Petah Tikva was in conflict with his position as head of the IFA.

Mr. Livnat’s gunning for Mr. Luzon was no doubt politically motivated. Mr. Luzon chaired Maccabi prior to become IFA president but still attends the club’s games. Nevertheless, what Mr. Blatter’s support did not do was ensure an independent investigation into the allegation that would have been in line with best practice rather than uphold soccer governance’s policing of itself. That policing mechanism is fundamentally flawed witness the massive corruption scandals that have rocked world soccer in the last three years.

By the same token, FIFA has effectively been a pillar of autocracy in the Middle East and North Africa by seldom intervening in a world in which soccer associations are controlled by the ruler’s pawns or members of ruling families. In doing so, it has allowed autocrats to control the only non-religious institution that provides a venue for protest in the absence or advance of a popular revolt.

The mosque and the soccer pitch constitute the two venues where autocrats cannot simply crackdown on protesters because of the fact that football is the one thing that evokes the kind of deep-seated emotion that religion does and the sheer number of people involved in a soccer-crazy part of the world.

Beyond the key role that militant soccer fans played in successful anti-autocratic revolts like the overthrow in 2011 of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, the soccer pitch has become a venue of protest in a host of countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Morocco and Algeria.

Underlying FIFA’s failure to enforce best practice and its non-interference in government manipulation is the fictional notion that politics and sports do not and should not mix. Nothing could be further from the truth irrespective of whether in a democracy or an autocratic system. One just needs to look at the composition of the FIFA executive board or the International Olympic Council as recently highlighted by investigative German sports journalist Jens Weinreich.

Greater transparency and accountability as well as the enabling of powerful international sports associations to live up to their lofty principles and values would be significantly enhanced by recognizing reality for what it is: sports and politics are inextricably intertwined. Denial of this fact of life undermines and lacks credibility. 

That sports and politics are intertwined is evident at every twist of the road from the direct involvement of rulers, politicians and governments in the boards and executive committees of regional and international sports associations to the use of mega events by nations and governments to the role that global governing bodies play in the legitimization of rulers. Recognizing that reality would open the door to enforcing a charter or code of conduct that would govern the relationship of sports and politics. That is of course the one thing that neither politics nor the existing sports governance structure does not want.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg, and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Mega sports events: A double-edged sword

By James M. Dorsey

There is a lesson to be learnt from this year’s Formula One public relations disaster in Bahrain, trade union pressure on Qatar, controversy over Israel’s hosting of the FIFA Under-21  finals, last year’s successful International Olympic Committee (IOC) campaign that forced three reluctant Muslim nations to field for the first time women athletes at a global sporting event and the recent election of a Bahraini soccer executive as president of the troubled Asian Football Confederation : mega-events and campaigning for office in international sports associations empower activists and put nations at risk of reputational damage.

Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone acknowledged as much saying in April that Bahrain had been “stupid” to allow the Grand Prix to go ahead because it gave a platform to thousands demonstrating against perceived autocratic rule and lack of rights. Mr. Ecclestone’s criticism didn’t stop him however from expressing willingness to extend his contract with Bahrain for another five years until 2021.

Nevertheless, Mr. Ecclestone’s comment highlighted the fact that mega events and public office are double-edged swords. They potentially allow countries to showcase themselves, polish or improve a nation’s international and a government’s domestic image, serve as tools to enhance soft power and create commercial, economic and political opportunity. That is if host nations of mega-events and office holders and their home countries understand that winning the right to organize a major tournament or an association election puts on display not just their best side but also their warts and at times even existential problems. 

That empowers activists, spotlights their demands amid intense media focus and gives them the moral high ground if a country fails to respond adequately in word and deed. The lesson learnt from recent experiences in the Middle East is that mega events and public office give not only countries and governments leverage but also their detractors.

Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Israel prove the point. Their responses have failed to allow them to gain the upper hand in popular perception and coverage in the media that are both dominated by activists highlighting their failure to adhere to international standards of human, labor and/or gender rights. Worse even, mega events and nominating officials for regional and international office has reinforced the negative perceptions they were trying to reverse. Their failure has strengthened calls for such rights to become key criteria in the awarding of future mega-events. It has also rendered the separation of sports and politics a fiction and focused attention on the need to develop systems that acknowledge the relationship but eliminate conflict of interest and ensure that it is not abused for partisan political interests on an individual, national, regional and international scale.

For two years running, Bahrain’s Grand Prix backfired with protesters dominating news coverage. The image that emerged in television pictures and independent reporting of thousands protesting was not one of an island state that has put a squashed popular uprising in 2011 behind it, but one of a nation wracked by continued strife to which the government responds with force.

By the same token, the newly elected AFC president, Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, head of the Bahrain Football Association, has been unable to put an end to persistent questions about his alleged failure to stand up for Bahraini national soccer team players who were arrested, publicly denounced, tortured and charged for taking part in anti-government demonstrations two years ago during a popular uprising that was brutally squashed. The charges were later dropped under pressure from FIFA.

Sheikh Salman’s legalistic argument that football and politics are separate and that he had not violated FIFA or AFC rules rather than addressing the larger moral issues involved has resulted in persistent media questioning, activist calls for his disqualification and a reinforcement of the Bahraini government’s image as repressive and uncompromising. Rather than categorically refusing to address the issue, Bahrain and Sheikh Salman, although restricted by being a member of a royal family that is dominated by hard liners, would have been better served by allowing the government’s own inquiry into the suppression of the revolt that admitted to wrongdoing by security forces, including torture, to shape his response and deflate the criticism.

Similarly, neither Israel nor Saudi Arabia have succeeded in turning the tide of public opinion or at least establishing a degree of equity in perception. To be fair, Saudi Arabia, which grudgingly allowed a few underperforming expatriate Saudi women to represent it at the 2012 London Olympics, left the field to its critics by effectively refraining from engagement in the debate about severe restrictions imposed on women in the kingdom. In doing so, it failed to leverage assets it could have deployed to moderate perceptions, including the economic clout of women in the kingdom as a result of rights enshrined in Islamic law, moves to authorize physical education in private schools, the re-emergence of women’s health clubs, plans to license for the first time women’s soccer clubs that currently operate in a legal nether land and last year’s unprecedented election of a commoner as head of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation to replace an appointed royal. 

Similarly, a video on You Tube features Palestinian youth in a village near the wall separating Israel from the West Bank tearing off their FC Barcelona jerseys, hanging them over razor wire the Israeli military erected around the village and setting them on fire. The protest was part of a campaign protesting Israel’s hosting in June of the U-21 championship finals intended to counter Israel’s increasingly tarnished image as the obstacle to settling its long standing dispute with the Palestinians, growing objections to Israeli policies perceived as intentionally making daily life difficult for West Bank residents and its ever greater integration into European soccer. Israel is part of UEFA rather than Asia because of Arab refusal to play Israeli teams as long as a peace settlement has not been achieved.

The U-21 is the most important tournament Israel has ever hosted and comes at a time that Israel has lost significant ground in the global battle for hearts and minds. A hunger strike last year by a Palestinian national soccer team player who was suspected of association with a militant group, Islamic Jihad, but never charged proved to be costly in the global soccer world. The player was released under pressure from FIFA, UEFA and FIFPro, the global players’ organization amid fears that he would die as a result of his hunger strike. 

"Football is an effective vehicle for Israel to rehabilitate its image with the international community. A large sporting event is an ideal opportunity for Israel to present itself as a normal country," Tamir Sorek, a University of Florida expert on Israeli soccer told UAE newspaper, The National.

As a result, more than 60 prominent European players, including Chelsea's Eden Hazard, Arsenal's Abou Diaby and Paris Saint-Germain's Jeremy Menez, publicly warned that holding the U-21 in Israel would be “seen as a reward for actions that are contrary to sporting values.” Published last year as Israeli forces attacked Gaza, the players declared: "We, as European football players, express our solidarity with the people of Gaza who are living under siege and denied basic human dignity and freedom.”  UEFA, denying that it was mixing sports and politics, rebutted criticism of the awarding of the tournament to Israel by saying that it would bring ‘people’ – Israelis and Palestinians -- together

Even Qatar, the nation that has gone the furthest in seeking to address criticism and engage with its critics, has so far been unable to shift the epicenter of international public opinion and perception. Its major issue is lack of adherence to international labor standards and labor conditions denounced by trade unions and human rights groups as modern day slavery rather than expected Islamic restrictions on fan behavior during the 2022 World Cup, persistent unproven allegations of wrong doing in its campaign to win hosting rights and concern about lack of a soccer tradition and extreme summer temperatures.

Criticism of labor conditions, including the restrictive sponsorship system that puts workers at the mercy of their employers, not only in Qatar but in the Gulf at large, is long standing. What has changed is that the hosting of the World Cup has shifted the playing field. The driver of pressure for change are no longer human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch who have at best moral power and little ability to mass mobilize but an international trade union movement that potentially can activate 175 million members in 153 countries.

With foreign workers constituting a majority of the population and at least half a million more expected to swell their ranks to work on World Cup-related infrastructure projects, Qatar has moved to improve material working and living conditions and the 2022 organizing committee has issued a charter  of workers’ rights. The moves fall short of union demands for the creation of independent workers’ organizations and collective bargaining and despite talks with labor ministry officials has put the two on a collision course with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) demanding that world soccer body FIFA deprive Qatar of its hosting rights.

The jury is out as the battle unfolds. The outcome is likely to demonstrate the limits of the leverage of both parties and the price they risk paying. The unions could well succeed in reducing if not stopping the influx into Qatar of unionized labor but are unlikely to persuade millions of impoverished unskilled and semi-skilled Asian workers from seeking greener pastures and a better life for their loved ones. To project success, the ITUC has to win the buy in of its members, many of whom are preoccupied with resolving problems arising from the global economic crisis. By the same token, Qatar will likely have little problem retaining its hosting rights and attracting non-unionized labor, but will continue to suffer reputational damage, defeating one of the goals of its comprehensive sports strategy.

If reputational damage and failure to achieve a key goal is a host nation’s primary risk, activists may see achieving that as a moral victory. Similarly, they are likely to claim any progress such as an improvement of workers’ material labor and living condition as a success even if they were unable to meet their ultimate goal. 

Underlying their inability, however is the fact that in taking on Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Israel they were addressing issues perceived by government to effect national security if not their nation’s very existence. That inability highlights limitations to their power and the uphill battle of sparking a meaningful broad-based global campaign like the sports boycott of South Africa that ultimately was effective only because it exploited a willingness in the international community to confront apartheid. The international community has proven so far to have little appetite for paying more than lip service to workers’ rights in the Gulf, women’s rights in Saudi Arabia or Israeli policies towards the Palestinians.

At the bottom line, the message for host countries is: mega events constitute a platform for showcasing both a country’s positive aspects as well as its warts. The question potential hosts have to ask themselves is what price are they willing to pay in terms of reputational risk if they are not willing or able to address their vulnerabilities. That question is all the more acute as international sports bodies like FIFA are under pressure to make human, labor and women’s rights part of the criteria for awarding events. In doing so, they are likely to raise the barrier for a country’s chance of gaining the opportunity to host a major event.

For activists, the message is one of empowerment but empowerment that comes with the responsibility to employ it effectively. The trade union’s battle with Qatar over labor rights is likely to become a case study. With nine years to go until the World Cup, the question is whether ITUC played its trump card too early by already asking FIFA to deprive Qatar of the World Cup.

In doing, so the ITUC has gone out on a limb. Union officials concede privately that European unions are preoccupied with austerity measures and stark unemployment in the Eurozone, US unions confront slow recovery in North America and Asian unions with the exception of Japan have demonstrated little engagement.

“What happens to the workers if Qatar loses the World Cup? The ITUC loses its bargaining chip. Moreover, they are campaigning for taking away the World Cup even before the bids for construction of stadiums have been awarded. Qatar’s construction boom will continue with or without the World Cup. Even if they lose those workers, others will come. It’s the market’s push and pull factor. If the Nepalese don’t come, the Bangladeshis will. If the Bangladeshis don’t come, the Vietnamese will and if the Vietnamese don’t come, the Chinese will,” said an independent labor analyst.

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

UEFA decision on Gibraltar opens AFC prospects for Kurds

By James M. Dorsey

A decision by European soccer body UEFA to grant Gibraltar the right of membership potentially opens the door to Kurdistan to seek association with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) in a move that would acknowledge demands for increased autonomy and the possible shifting of national borders in the Middle East as a result of a wave of change sweeping the region and the civil war in Syria.

The UEFA decision on Gibraltar following a ruling by the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) and the possible Iraqi Kurdish application to the AFC puts pressure on world soccer body FIFA to loosen its rules on membership as the group gears up for its general assembly in Mauritius next week.

CAS ruled that UEFA’s adoption in 1999 of FIFA’s rule that members need to be recognized by the United Nations was unfair. UEFA originally accepted the UN rule in 1999 to appease Spain which was opposed to the British outpost’s membership.

FIFA has used the rule to bar groups like the Kurds but relaxed its criteria for Palestine, which was granted membership despite not having full UN membership. The AFC’s statutes refer to the UN rule only indirectly by stating that membership has to comply with FIFA’s statutes.

An application by Iraqi Kurdistan is likely to be resisted by Middle Eastern members of the AFC that are largely controlled directly or indirectly by governments that have been put on the defensive as a result of the popular revolts in the region and an international community that is reticent to see a redrawing of colonial-era borders.

Iraqi Kurdistan has been autonomous within Iraq since Western powers imposed a no-fly-zone in the early 1990s to protect the Kurds from retaliation by then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Iraqi Kurds see their national soccer team as a vehicle to assert nationhood and achieve eventual statehood.

The Kurds are but one group, albeit the most important one in the Middle East, that is demanding greater self-rule and recognition of national rights. The civil war in Syria has raised questions about what a post-Bashar Al-Assad state would look like with Syrian Kurds demanding autonomy and fears that Mr. Al-Assad’s last resort may be to carve out a state for his minority Alawite sect. Kurdish guerrillas in Turkey are negotiating with the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan greater rights within Turkey.

Sunni Muslim tribal leaders in Iraq are demanding a federation that would give them greater control of their own affairs against the backdrop of increased sectarian violence. Other multi-ethnic states in the Middle East like Iran risk minorities demanding greater rights. Israel and the Palestinians have yet to agree on their borders as part of an elusive peace agreement.

“Ominous political realities may be rendering the nation-state system incompatible with the emerging new Arab world….the disintegration that the region has already witnessed – and will undoubtedly continue to witness – will reverberate beyond the Arab map with the creation of a sovereign Kurdish state. Such a state, whether existing de facto or with widespread formal recognition, will have an ever-lasting effect on the boundaries of the Arab world (Syria and Iraq) and of the wider Middle East (Turkey and Iran),” said Saudi analyst Nawaf Obaid, a visiting fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, in a recent analysis.

A statement by Iraqi Kurdish president Massoud Barzani equating sports to politics as a way of achieving recognition adorns Iraqi Kurdistan’s three major stadiums and virtually all of its sports centers and institutions. “We want to serve our nation and use sports to get everything for our nation. We all believe in what the president said,” says Kurdistan Football Federation (KFF) president Safin Kanabi, scion of a legendary supporter of Kurdish soccer who led anti-regime protests in Kurdish stadiums during Saddam Hussein’s rule.

While Arab states’ natural inclination would be to reject an Iraqi Kurdish application to the AFC, some believe that opponents of Mr. Al-Assad, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar may use it as leverage to persuade Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to reduce support for Mr. Al-Assad. Iraq has a one year, 800,000 ton oil contract with Syria and is believed to allow Iranian cargo planes headed for Syria to regularly transit its air space.

The KFF has been demanding since last year that FIFA grant its team the right to plqy international friendlies in much the same way that the soccer body allowed Kosovo and Catalonia to do so.

“Like any nation, we want to open the door through football. Take Brazil. People know Brazil first and foremost through football. We want to do the same. We want to have a strong team by the time we have a country. We do our job, politicians do theirs. Inshallah (if God wills), we will have a country and a flag” adds Kurdistan national coach Abdullah Mahmoud Muhieddin.

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

FIFA anti-racism campaign has work cut out for it in the Middle East

Iranian coach Firouz Karimi (right) banned for racism

By James M. Dorsey and Amir Khalinejad

World soccer body FIFA’s newly established anti-racism committee has its work cut out for it in the Middle East and North Africa where ironically only Israel and Iran have taken some, albeit too few, steps to counter discrimination based on color, religion, ethnicity or sex.

In countering racism and discrimination in the Middle East, FIFA faces not only racist outbursts by fans, players and officials on the pitch but often a structure and unwritten policies that are inherently discriminatory.

In the latest incident of racism, Iran’s soccer federation this month banned Paykan FC coach Firouz Karimi for eight games and fined him $3,000 for calling Dutch player of African descent Sendley Sidney Bito a cannibal and a Negro and refusing to shake his hand.

“I only tried to express my respect toward Karimi. I offered him hand shake, but it seems he was angry with the result.” Mr. Bito told reporters referring to the defeat of Paykan which was last month relegated to the second division by his Fajr FC team. Karimi justified his refusal with the fact that Iranian culture dictates that the older person initiate a handshake.A video of the incident has gone viral on the Internet with fans organizing campaigns against racism despite a crackdown on access to the Web that makes it difficult for Iranians in the Islamic republic to access popular social media websites.

The sanctioning by the Iranian soccer federation is in stark contrast to it its turning a blind eye to regular denunciations as donkeys of players and supporters of Traktor Sazi FC, the club based in Tabriz, the capital of Iranian Azerbaijan, widely seen as a potent projection of Azeri ethnic and national identity. “Wherever Tractor goes, fans of the opposing club chant insulting slogans. They imitate the sound of donkeys, because Azerbaijanis are historically derided as stupid and stubborn. I remember incidents going back to the time that I was a teenager,” said a long-standing observer of Iranian soccer. The Iranian federation’s neglect is tied to the government’s crackdown on anything that reeks of separatism.

Similarly, a recent rejection of two Chechen Muslim players because of their religion by militant, racist supporters of Beitar Jerusalem, the only club in Israel to refuse Palestinian players, sparked outrage in Israel but little effort to force the club to put an end to its discriminatory hiring policies. The outrage was rooted in the militants’ use of Third Reich terminology by vowing to keep their club pure and by the fact that it countered a long-standing pillar of Israeli policy that seeks to forge close ties with its neighbors’ neighbors in the absence of relations with a majority of Arab states.

To be sure, the Israeli soccer federation, the only FIFA member in the region with a long-standing anti-racism campaign has repeatedly slapped Beitar, which has close ties with Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s Likud, on its fingers but has refrained from insisting that the club adhere to the country’s anti-discrimination laws. To the credit of Beitar owner Arcadi Gaydamak, the acquisition of the Chechens was in part designed to break the militants’ hold on the club and to pave the way for Palestinian players by first hiring non-Arab Muslim ones.

Similarly, Hany Ramzy, the coach of Egypt’s Olympic soccer team who is credited with Egypt’s winning of the 1998 Africa Cup of Nations championship, returned to Egypt from last year’s London games a soccer hero and a model in a country and a region in which identity politics rather national identity often governs the beautiful game. A Coptic Christian and one-time legendary national soccer team captain of a squad whose former national coach Hassan Shehata established Muslim piety as a criterion for membership equal to skill, Mr. Ramzy, symbolized what is possible as well as the immense problems Middle Eastern and North African nations have in coming to grips with their ethnic and religious minorities.

Mr. Ramzy is one of the few if not the only Coptic Egyptian national team player in past decades. He is the exception that proves the rule in a country in which the Coptic Church has its own Copts-only soccer teams. Mr. Ramzy is believed to owe his success to a significant extent to the fact that he earned prestige by being hired by various European teams, including Neuchâtel Xamax, Werder Bremen and Kaiserslautern.

“In Egypt, there is a problem that many people don't even consider. This problem relates to not allowing the Copts to play in the national teams of sports, especially soccer which is the most popular game in Egypt. Marginalization of young Copts by the Football Association and the administrations of Egyptian clubs resulted in having no Coptic players in the core teams. Youth teams have very few Copts and they are laid off as soon as they reach certain age and never take the chance to promote,” said Safwat Freeze Ghali, writing on the website of Copts United.

Charging that soccer discrimination against Copts encourages discrimination by Muslims and anger and hate among Copts, who account for some 10 per cent of all Egyptians, Mr. Ghali spoke out of personal experience.

“I suffered from this problem with my son who was born in 1995 and has a great talent in soccer. Many people have said so after they saw him playing. My son then started in a small club, but never took a chance to play. His coach treats him so badly and his colleagues make fun of his Christian name. His coach told him: I won't let you touch the ball (play in the team) and never ask me why! We got fed up and I took him to a bigger club and they liked him very much and promised to recruit him but they never did. Then, I moved him to another club where they liked him too, but when the coach knew his name (a Christian name), he said: We'll see, later!” Mr. Ghali wrote.

Journalist Mustafa Abdelhalim in an analysis published by Common Ground suggested that an interfaith soccer day on the eve of the London Olympics could serve as an example for Egypt and for that matter the rest of North Africa and the Middle East.  “In June 2012 London’s Wembley Stadium was the site of a ‘faith and football’ day that united students from Muslim, Christian and Jewish schools. This event was planned by the Three Faiths Forum (3FF), a UK-based organization dedicated to building relationships between people of all faiths, and the UK Football Association, which officially oversees the sport in the country. Egyptians could replicate this example by creating nationwide leagues to promote intergroup and interfaith cooperation. These teams could include anyone who wants to participate in the sport and make Egyptians’ shared interest in sports a tool for a more inclusive society,” Mr. Abdelhalim wrote

In Turkey, a predominantly Muslim nation with both a European and a Middle Eastern heritage, referee Halil Ibrahim Dincbag campaigns for gay rights. Mr. Dincbag took the Turkish soccer association to court for allegedly outing him by leaking that he had been exempted from military services on the grounds of homosexuality and then dismissing him despite the fact that Turkey has legally enshrined gay rights.

Mr. Dincdag’s decision not to go quietly is nevertheless no mean feat in a country rife with homophobia where spectators decry opposing players and referees whose decisions they dislike as faggots. Dincdag hails from Trabzon, a Black Sea city known for its legendary soccer club, its fanatical football fans and hot-tempered, explosive inhabitants who are quicker with a knife than with their wits. "I could have left the country, or disputed everything," Dincdag said. "But I knew the media wouldn't let it go. So I decided to tell the truth -- yes, I'm the gay ref you're looking for."

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