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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Lebanese sports scandals fuel tensions

Source: The Daily Star / Victoria Rainey

By James M. Dorsey

As Lebanon, a country in which almost every facet of life is defined by sectarian fault lines, teeters in the shadow of civil war in next door Syria, the country is also being rocked by multiple mushrooming sports scandal.

Months after a massive soccer match-fixing scandal became public and three international Lebanese referees were detained in Singapore for accepting sexual favors, Lebanon’s basketball team was this month forced to return home from the Philippines after the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) banned it from participating in international competitions. The ban was the result of political interference in a dispute in the Lebanese basketball association.

The scandals dashed government hopes that sports could help it maintain a sense of national unity inspired earlier this year by initial soccer successes in 2014 World Cup qualifiers – a tall order in a country of four million that is divided among 18 Muslim and Christian sects, scarred by 15 years of civil war that ended with a fragile peace in 1991 and whose largest political grouping, Hezbollah, has sided militarily with the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

They also are to Beshara Abboud, the owner of a historic Beirut gym that was closed and torn down, a symptom of the decline of Lebanese sports. “There is no sport in Lebanon now. I am in the boxing federation, and we struggle to find people to train, to play,” he told The Daily Star.

Political interference, the soccer scandals coupled with the ban on the basketball team, competition from state-of-the art health clubs, the commercialization of sports were the death of his gym and increasing incidents of doping, Mr. Abboud said. “In ’98, we went to a bodybuilding competition and I couldn’t believe it [the widespread use of steroids]. I told my team they could stop if they wanted, win or lose, this is not our place. We stopped after that, the steroids are too much,” he said. As the building of his gym is replaced by an apartment block, he adds: “Now it is at the end.”

Originally operated by his father Khalil, a soccer, player, the gym served as a training facility during World War Two for soldiers being dispatched to North Africa as part of the French military. The gym’s popularity prompted Lebanon’s Christian Kataeb Party, whose headquarters were nearby to assist in replacing the gym’s tent with a more permanent structure. The Kataeb withdrew when the gym started attracting people from other sects.

American University of Beirut political scientist Danyel Reiche describes professional sports and particularly soccer in Lebanon in an essay in Third World Quarterly as the sector with the most “direct confrontation among the different sectarian and political groups“ because “whereas the political system prevents sects from competing with each other there are no separate sectarian (sports) leagues.” Quoting George Orwell, Mr. Reiche says Lebanese soccer amount to “war minus the shooting.”

The scandals kick started when the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) said in February that it was investigating the involvement of players and administrative staff of the Lebanese soccer federation in match-fixing.  In total, 20 players and an administrator were banned for life and fined $15,000 each.

The basketball scandal erupted in May when a Lebanese Basketball Championship quarterfinal match was cancelled between rivals Champville, which is backed by the Free Patriotic Movement of former president and Hezbollah ally Gen. Michel Aoun, and Amchit that is chaired by current President Michel Suleiman’s son and backed by the Mustaqbal movement that is headed by Suleiman and caretaker Minister Mohammed al-Safadi. The cancellation and awarding of the match to Champville was prompted by tensions caused by Suleiman’s armed bodyguards.

Rejecting the decision, Amchit violated the Lebanese association’s rules by filing a lawsuit against Champville and the Lebanese basketball governing body, which in turn prompted the international ban. Amchit is backed by several other clubs, including one from a neighboring that is headed by an ally of the president, another that is owned by the minister of finance and a fourth is in Beirut, that is affiliated with the country’s Sunni prime minister.

Amchit has since said it was dropping its lawsuit in the hope of FIBA lifting its ban after players protest against miring the sport with politics. The Amchit effort was thwarted when the club and its backers refused to sign a memorandum of understanding proposed by FIBA in which they would agree not to revert to the judiciary to settle disputes.

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.

Lebanese victory boosts national unity and spotlights Gulf problems

Abu Dhabi's Mohammed bin Zayed stadium

By James M. Dorsey

Lebanon advanced for the first time in its soccer history to the fourth and final Asian qualifying round for the 2014 World Cup despite losing this week to the United Arab Emirates. In doing so, the Lebanese squad cemented soccer’s role as a rallying point for a country divided and scarred by years of bitter civil war afraid that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s sectarian-tainted brutal crackdown could spill into the streets of Lebanese cities.

In a country where almost every facet of life is defined by sectarian fault lines, Lebanon’s advance had people from all walks of life glued to television sets and computer screens in offices, university lecture halls, sports bars and living rooms. Schools closed early for students to be able to watch the match.

The Lebanese success even if it was by default strengthened soccer’s unifying role two months after the national team’s defeat of South Korea in December brought tens of thousands into the streets of the Lebanese capital Beirut waving the country's red and white flag with a green cedar in the middle. As Lebanon scored against South Korea sectarian chants in Beirut’s Cite Sportive stadium were replaced with roars of "Minshan Allah, Libnan yallah'' - "For God's Sake, Lebanon Come On'' as fans belonging to the country’s multiple sects and political groups united behind their national squad.

Nonetheless, fighting last month between supporters of Mr. Assad, and those who oppose his regime in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli signaled just how fragile that sense of national unity is. Three people were killed and many more were injured in 24 hours of fighting.

Meanwhile, in a weird twist of events, Lebanese fans attending Wednesday’s match in Abu Dhabi against the UAE spotlighted a key weakness of soccer in the Gulf that has fuelled some of the criticism of Qatar’s winning in late 2010 of the right to host the 2022 World Cup: the lack of a fan base eager to come to the stadium to cheer their team.

The estimated 6,000 Lebanese fans outnumbered the Emiratis on Wednesday in Abu Dhabi’s Al Nahyan Stadium. To be sure with an estimated 100,000 Lebanese expats resident in the UAE many of the Lebanese did not have to travel far for the match. Nonetheless, news reports said that Lebanese supporters had come from as far as Brazil and Britain to support their team.

The Gulf News reported that Emiratis boycotted the match because their team did not stand a chance irrespective of whether it defeated Lebanon or not of reaching the World Cup finals as it had done once before in 1990.

While that may be true it evades the structural problem with filling stadiums in a part of the world where the local population often constitutes a minority of the total population. In the UAE, locals account for at best 15% of the population whose vast majority are expatriates.

A recent survey by Abu Dhabi daily The National concluded that the Mohamed bin Zayed Stadium of the emirate’s Al Jazira Sports & Culture club was among the UAE’s most popular sport venues. The stadium owes it popularity only in part to its futuristic design that lacks a runway track and allows fans to be seated closer to the field.

Equally important is the fact that Al Jazira has some of the highest attendance figures in the Gulf because its former chief executive officer, Englishman Phil Anderton, a former marketeer for Scottish Rugby, Coca Cola and Procter & Gamble, was willing to go places others in the Gulf shied away from because they were afraid of upsetting the fragile demographic apple cart.

In a bid to raise match attendance and integrate his club with the community, Mr. Anderton reached out to the expatriate population – a move Gulf clubs controlled by the region’s ruling families have avoided out of fear that this would give foreigners a stake that could encourage them over time to demand greater rights.

Mr. Anderton’s strategy worked. Within a year attendance figures at the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium had quadrupled drawing a record crowd of 28,164 for a match against Al Wasl. Redevelopment of the stadium has increased its capacity from 15,000 to 42,000. Ironically, the increased number of expats has sparked greater enthusiasm among Emiratis.

"The number of Al Jazira's home fans is really impressive as they really get a good crowd. You enjoy the game thrice as much than the stadium being more than half empty. Also, we see a lot of expats at their games so it's great that they are showing an interest in the Pro League,” The National quoted rival Al Nasr fan Faisal Hamadi as saying.

“We looked at who was coming and who wasn't and why. There was a lack of awareness and a range of misconceptions - they thought it was amateur or for Emiratis only. From this we developed a brand position to encourage people interested in football to come to the club. With the transitory nature few felt a connection so we are trying to unite the city through the club with the tag line ‘Pride of Abu Dhabi'. We developed a full marketing plan with advertising and PR as well as going into local schools and communities to try and change perceptions and raise awareness,” Mr. Anderson said in an interview last year.

“We showcased our star players and organized tournaments for the community in our facilities. Once we encouraged people to come to the games and feel part of the club we had to deliver a product. We needed to make sure that we treated people well when they came, with food in a clean well sign-posted stadium and then we needed to put on a good show where football is at the core of other entertainment options - it's more an American model,” he added.

Mr. Anderton’s approach broke with Gulf practice in more than one way. Arguing that teams can only exploit their home advantage if they have the crowd cheering them on during matches, he also argued in favor of turning clubs dependent on the politically motivated largesse of their royal and tribal owners into commercially viable entities. 

“Historically clubs here didn't have the requirement to go into the commercial side of things but we want to develop sponsorship, merchandise, ticketing and hospitality from using our facilities 365 days a year via leasing in order to set down a sustainable business model, which inevitably leads to success on the field,” Mr. Anderton said.

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

Lebanon employs soccer in bid to reduce threat of spill over of Syrian violence

Lebanon's national team trains for crucial game against the UAE (Source: The Daily Star)

By James M. Dorsey

Soccer is rallying divided Lebanon scarred by years of bitter civil war at a time that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s sectarian-tainted brutal crackdown threatens to spill into the streets of Lebanese cities.

In a bid to build on Lebanese rallying around their flag in December after the Lebanese national soccer team defeated South Korea 2:1 in a 2014 World Cup qualifier, Education Minister Hassan Diab called this week on private and public schools to allow students to go home early on Wednesday so that they can cheer their squad as it plays the UAE in Abu Dhabi. A win against favourite UAE could guarantee Lebanon a spot in the fourth and final round of qualifiers for the Brazil World Cup.

In a country where almost every facet of life is defined by sectarian fault lines, Lebanon’s defeat of South Korea in December brought tens of thousands of fans into the streets of the Lebanese capital Beirut waving the country's red and white flag with a green cedar in the middle. Traffic came to a halt and for a moment sectarian differences that have deeply divided the country for decades were superseded by a sense of national pride.

"Sports can do what religion and politics can't, gather the Lebanese people around a common thing. The national team changed the point of view to many football fans, and it united them for one goal, to participate in World Cup 2014. This was a very good step to help people to leave their political and religious views behind and watch their team without reverting to riots or gang wars,” The Associated Press (AP) quoted Lebanese supporter Serge Mghames as saying at the time.

Just how fragile that sense of unity is was highlighted when earlier this month fighting erupted between supporters of Mr. Assad, and those who oppose his regime in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli where a single street divides Jabal Muhsin, populated by members of the Syrian leader’s Alawite sect, from Sunni Muslims in Bab al-Tabbana who have close ties to their Sunni brethren across the border in Syria.

Three people were killed and many more were injured in 24 hours of fighting. Walls riddled with bullets and damaged buildings betray the intensity of the fighting.

The government hopes that a surprise defeat of the UAE could revive the soccer-inspired sense of national unity and prove stronger than sectarian animosity that is never far from the surface.

That however is a tall order in a country of four million that is divided among 18 Muslim and Christian sects and scarred by 15 years of civil war that ended with a fragile peace in 1991.

If the experience of Iraq whose national team became Asian champion in 2007 at a time that the country was wracked by sectarian bloodshed or Abbas Suan, a devout Palestinian Israeli Muslim who refused to sing the Hatikva, Israel’s national anthem, when it was played before a game but in 2006 united Israeli Jews and Arabs by securing with a last minute equalizer against Ireland Israel’s first chance in 35 years to qualify for a world cup is anything to go by soccer’s unifying effect is lost as soon as the team no longer performs.

The government’s effort is further complicated by the fact that sectarianism is so deeply rooted in the country’s game that the government banned fans from attending domestic league matches in the wake of the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Harriri and violent clashes between fans following the 2006 war between the Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah and Israel.

The government lifted the ban on fans in October of last year, but by then the damage had been done. The ban devastated the game: its domestic league whose clubs are closely tied to sectarian and political interests all but collapsed and the national team was drained of potential talent. Clubs became financially even more dependent on their sectarian and political sponsors, allowing them to manipulate the game to their own ends. 

The grip of sectarian and political sponsors is strengthened by the fact that corporate sponsors like Coca Cola are forced to simultaneously support Christian, Sunni and Shiite teams to avoid being accused of favouring one community above the other. As a result, Lebanon fell in world soccer body FIFA’s rankings from 125 to 178 but has rebounded to 111 with its defeat of South Korea.

"Politics came into football and destroyed it," said Rahif Alameh, secretary-general of the Lebanese Football Association, who dates the "death of football" to 2001, the year when the government intervened in a murky match-fixing scandal rather than the 2005 ban on fans. That was when Lebanon's political-religious leaders began treating the association as a pie to be carved up in line with Lebanon’s sectarian system of power sharing.

The Hariri family’s Future or March 14 Movement, for example, sponsors several clubs. Rafik Hariri’s purchase in 2003 of Nejmeh, Lebanon’s most popular team made it the last to succumb to sectarianism. The first non-Christian club to be founded in Lebanon, Nejmeh lost its Shiite Muslim fan base with the acquisition by Mr. Hariri. The former billionaire prime minister initially ventured into sports as a moneymaking venture, but later turned his teams into vehicles for consolidating his Sunni Muslim support.

"Football had just (become an extension) of politics. Everything in Lebanon is politicized, the air we breathe is politicized.,” Mr. Alameh said.

Source: Danyel Reiche, War Minus the Shooting? The politics of sport in Lebanon as a unique case in comparative politics, Third World Quarterly, March 2011)

Unconfirmed reports suggest that the various teams within a political block – the Hariri’s pro-Western and pro-Saudi March 14 Movement or Iran-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah’s pro-Syrian March 8 Movement – support each other by not fielding their best players when one of their associated clubs needs a win to progress in a championship or avoid being relegated.

American University of Beirut political scientist Danyel Reiche describes professional sports and particularly soccer in Lebanon in an essay in Third World Quarterly as the sector with the most “direct confrontation among the different sectarian and political groups“ because “whereas the political system prevents sects from competing with each other there are no separate sectarian (sports) leagues.” Quoting George Orwell, Mr. Reiche says Lebanese soccer amount to “war minus the shooting.”

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

Lebanese-Syrian soccer qualifier serves as barometer of troubled relations

Syrian soccer kowtows to Assad regime

By James M. Dorsey

A recent Lebanese-Syrian Asia Cup qualifier serves as an ironic barometer of troubled relations between the two countries seeking to chart their individual futures as well as that of their uneasy relationship.

Soldiers armed with machine guns controlled the entrances to the Rafik Hariri Stadium where the match was being played in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon named after a prime minister who was assassinated in 2005 allegedly with tacit Syrian complicity if not active participation. A United Nations tribunal last year indicted four members of Syria’s foremost Lebanese ally, Shiite militia Hezbollah, on charges of killing Mr. Hariri in a massive car bombing. Both Syria and Hezbollah have repeatedly denied involvement in the death of Mr. Hariri.

The killing of Mr. Hariri sparked massive anti-Syrian demonstrations that forced Damascus to withdraw its troops after 30 years from Lebanon. It also paved the way for the formal establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries after Syria dropped its refusal to formally recognize Lebanon as an independent state rather than a part of Greater Syria. Syria accredited Lebanon’s first ambassador to Damascus days before the match and welcomed a rare visit to Damascus by the Lebanese defence minister Elias Murr, who blames a failed 2005 attempt on his life on Syrian intelligence.

The massive security operation in a stadium bereft of spectators reflected the near civil war in Syria where a brutal government crackdown has failed to repress a ten month-old popular uprising against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad as well as the ripples of the revolt in Lebanon as a result of Hezbollah’s unqualified support for the Syrian leader.

Nevertheless, the very fact that Syria allowed its national team to travel abroad and that the match was the first in many years to be played on Lebanese soil rather than on neutral ground elsewhere in the Middle East speaks volumes about Syria’s relationship with Lebanon, one of only three Arab League countries to have voted against sanctioning the Assad regime for its brutality. More than 5,000 people are believed to have died in Syria since the uprising began in March of last year.

The fact that Syria allowed its national soccer team to Lebanon contrasts starkly with Syria’s refusal late last year to participate in the Arab Games in Bahrain for fear that some of its athletes might defect and confidence that Lebanon would not welcome any player seeking asylum.

Only two Syrian soccer players – national Under-23 goalkeeper and music composer Abd al Basset Saroot, a leader in the rebel stronghold of Homs, and national team goalkeeper Mosab Balhous who reportedly has been incarcerated since August on charges of sheltering armed gangs and possessing suspicious amounts of money – are known to have joined the revolt against Mr. Assad’s regime.

Syria placed its confidence in Lebanon despite deep-seated distrust between the two countries spilling regularly onto the soccer pitch. Suggesting that the Assad regime was so desperate for a victory in a bid to shore up its tarnished image, Lebanon accused Syria in November of fielding six players in an Under-19 Asian Football Championship qualifier whose ages had been falsified to qualify them for the team. The incident came two months after world soccer body FIFA barred Syria from competing for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil after the country’s national team fielded an unnamed ineligible player in a qualifying match against Tajikistan.

Syria, despite beating Lebanon 2:0 in this week’s Asia Cup qualifier, attacked Lebanon for its lack of hospitality and for having caused eight Syrian players to have food poisoning.

"We were treated with intentional carelessness by our hosts. There is no excuse for it, and brotherly countries should not be dealt in that way," Syrian Football Association executive Bahaa al-Omary told the BBC.

The Syrian defeat of Lebanon put paid to a rare moment of Lebanese unit sparked in a country where almost every facet of life is defined by its sectarian fault lines by the Lebanese team’s defeat in December of South Korea in a 2014 World Cup qualifier. The estimated 60,000 fans in Beirut’s Cite Sportive stadium shifted from sectarian chants to egging on their team with roars of “Minshan Allah, Libnan yallah” – “For God’s Sake, Lebanon Come On” – as soon as the Lebanese scored their first goal.

The fan support boosted Lebanese soccer, devastated by a ban on fans attending league matches in the wake of Mr. Hariri’s killing that was only lifted in October. As a result, Lebanon’s domestic league has all but collapsed and the national team drained of potential talent

“Politics came into football and destroyed it,” said Rahif Alameh, secretary-general of the Lebanese Football Association, who dates the “death of football” to 2001, the year when the government intervened in a murky match-fixing scandal rather than the 2005 ban on fans. That was when Lebanon’s political-religious leaders began treating the association as a pie to be carved up, just as they share power among Muslim and Christian communities.

Mr. Hariri, for example, sponsored several clubs and bought Nejmeh soccer club, Lebanon’s most popular team, which was largely cross-sectarian, but had always attracted much Shiite support. Mr. Hariri initially ventured into sports as a moneymaking venture, but later turned his teams into vehicles for consolidating his Sunni Muslim support.

Similarly, virtually every Lebanese soccer club is identified in sectarian and political terms — Maronite Christian, Sunni, Shiite, Druze or Armenian with certain political factions — even if the team’s players are religiously mixed.

“Football had just (become an extension) of politics. Everything in Lebanon is politicized, the air we breathe is politicized,” The Associated Press quoted Mr. Alameh as saying.

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

Lebanese soccer unites (briefly) deeply divided nation

Defender Ali al-Saadi celebrates goal against South Korea (Source: FIFA.com)

By James M. Dorsey

In a country where almost every facet of life is defined by its sectarian fault lines, soccer is at least temporarily performing where politicians and religious figures have failed: rallying a divided country scarred by years of bitter civil war around a symbol of national unity.

Soccer’s achievement stems from its defeat of South Korea in a 2014 World Cup qualifier. 

It took a first goal from defender Ali al-Saadi to convince the 60,000 fans in Beirut’s Cite Sportive stadium to shift from sectarian chants to egging on their team with roars of "Minshan Allah, Libnan yallah'' - "For God's Sake, Lebanon Come On'' – to historic 2-1 win over their favoured Asian opponents.

Tens of thousands of fans poured into the streets of the Lebanese capital waving the country's red and white flags with a green cedar in the middle. Traffic came to a halt and for a moment sectarian differences that have deeply divided the country for decades were superseded by a sense of national pride.

However to cement its achievement on and off the soccer pitch, the Lebanese national team would have to score the one more point it needs against a so far winless United Arab Emirates squad. If that fails, it could still make it to the fourth qualifying round if Kuwait follows its example and upsets South Korea’s apple cart.

"Sports can do what religion and politics can't, gather the Lebanese people around a common thing. The national team changed the point of view to many football fans, and it united them for one goal, to participate in World Cup 2014. This was a very good step to help people to leave their political and religious views behind and watch their team without reverting to riots or gang wars,” The Associated Press (AP) quoted Lebanese supporter Serge Mghames as saying.

If the experience of Iraq whose national team became Asian champion in 2007 at a time that the country was wracked by sectarian bloodshed or Abbas Suan, a devout Palestinian Israeli Muslim who refused to sing the Hatikva, Israel’s national anthem, when it was played before a game but united in 2006 Israeli Jews and Arabs by securing with a last minute equalizer against Ireland Israel’s first chance in 35 years to qualify for a world cup is anything to go by soccer’s unifying effect is lost as soon as the team no longer performs.

For Lebanese soccer to succeed where the game ultimately failed in countries like Iraq and Israel is a tall order against the backdrop of bitter feuds between Lebanon’s four million inhabitants who are divided among 18 Muslim and Christian sects and 15 years of civil war that ended with a fragile peace in 1991.

That peace has this year repeatedly been put to the test with militant Shiite group Hezbollah supporting embattled President Bashar al-Assad in neighbouring Syria and a United Nations-backed tribunal indicting four members of the group on charges of involvement in the 2005 assassination of former Sunni Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.  Hezbollah has denied involvement in the killing and has vowed never to turn over the suspects.

If that were not enough of a challenge, Lebanon’s national team would find it difficult if not impossible to significantly undermine sectarianism which is so deeply rooted in the country’s game that the government banned fans from attending domestic league matches following Mr. Harriri's assassination.

"There are no guarantees in football. We can only guarantee that we will go about our job in a professional manner. We are in good form, but don't write off the Emirates,'' said Theo Bucker, the national team’s German coach, sounding a cautionary noted according to FIFA.com.

The government lifted the ban on fans in October, but by then the damage had been done. The ban devastated the game: its domestic league all but collapsed and the national team was drained of potential talent. As a result, Lebanon fell in world soccer body FIFA’s rankings from 125 to 178 but has rebounded to 111 with its defeat of South Korea.

"Politics came into football and destroyed it," said Rahif Alameh, secretary-general of the Lebanese Football Association, who dates the "death of football" to 2001, the year when the government intervened in a murky match-fixing scandal rather than the 2005 ban on fans. That was when Lebanon's political-religious leaders began treating the association as a pie to be carved up, just as they share power among Muslim and Christian communities.

Mr. Hariri, for example, sponsored several clubs and bought Nejmeh soccer club, Lebanon’s most popular team, which was largely cross-sectarian, but had always attracted much Shiite support. Mr. had Hariri initially ventured into sports as a moneymaking venture, but later turned his teams into vehicles for consolidating his Sunni Muslim support. Virtually every Lebanese soccer club is identified in sectarian and political terms -- Maronite Christian, Sunni, Shiite, Druze or Armenian with certain political factions -- even if the team’s players are religiously mixed. Those identities have been reinforced by the aftermath of Mr. Hariri’s assassination.

"Football had just (become an extension) of politics. Everything in Lebanon is politicized, the air we breathe is politicized.,” Mr. Alameh told AP.

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

Everything goes in Syrian crackdown and Syrian soccer

Detained Syrian national goalkeeper Mosab Balhous

By James M. Dorsey

Everything goes in chalking up a victory for the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whether it is on Syrian streets or on soccer pitches.

The Syrian military brutally battles anti-government demonstrators on the streets of the country’s cities in a bid to suppress eight months of mass protests in violation of Mr. Assad’s agreement with the Arab League to seek a negotiated solution.

Similarly, Syria’s national soccer teams flagrantly set rules aside in their line-ups to ensure success on the pitch in a bid to demonstrate that Mr. Assad’s regime is in control and can perform despite the violence and turmoil.

In the latest incident, Lebanon has accused Syria of fielding six players in an Under-19 Asian Football Championship qualifier whose ages had been falsified to qualify them for the team.

The incident comes two months after world soccer body FIFA barred Syria from competing for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil after the country’s national team fielded an unnamed ineligible player in in a qualifying match against Tajikistan.

The ineligible player was fielded in both legs of Syria's Asian qualifying second round tie against Tajikistan on July 23 and 28. FIFA ordered that Syria be registered as having lost each match 3:0 to Tajikistan despite Syria having won them on the pitch on a 6:1 aggregate.

Lebanon Under-19 manager Samir Saad accused Syria, according to press reports, of fielding six players registered with the same date of birth, as well as former youth team players registered under different names and dates of birth, at the recent qualifiers in Fujairah, UAE, in which Syria beat Lebanon with a whopping 6:0.

He said the six players had all given January 1, 1993 as their birthdate. Only players born on that date or before qualify for the 2012 Under-19 AFC tournament. Lebanese Football Association executives said that it was impossible that half of the Syrian squad had been born on the same date.

Mr. Saad said Lebanon had filed a handwritten complaint to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) accusing Syria of forgery immediately after the match.

“We presented our complaint, according to Article 63 of the Asian Football Confederation regulations relating to protests, where the time limit is fixed to the two hours following the match,” Mr. Saad told the Lebanese paper Al-Akhbar.

AFC regulations require that complaints about a match be filed in hand writing immediately after a match and that a registered letter be sent to the soccer body within two days of the game.

Syria’s governing football body populated by Assad appointees has denied the allegations, determined to preserve the Syrian team’s record so far of having all four of its qualifiers in the tournament. Former Syrian Football Association Marwan Arafat said the eligibility of the Syrian players was “incontestable.”

Syria’s youth team coach, Hassam al-Sayed, accused Mr. Saad of fabricating the claim to distract attention from his team’s poor performance. Mr. Saad “invented the story to shift the focus of the Lebanese media from the severe defeat onto complaints about the age of our players,” Syria’s official Syrian News Agency quoted Mr. Sayed as saying.

Syrian security forces in August reportedly arrested national soccer goalkeeper Mosab Balhous on charges of sheltering armed gangs and possessing suspicious amounts of money. In a YouTube video, Mr. Balhos’ colleague, Abd Albasit Al Sarut, goalkeeper of the Syrian U-23 men’s national team, said Mr. Bahous had been accused of participating in anti-government protests and wanting to establish an Islamic emirate in the city of Homs.

In an earlier video on YouTube, Mr. Sarut asserted that the Syrian regime was levelling similar accusations against him, charging that he was a Salafi, a fundamentalist who seeks to emulate life as it was in the time of the Prophet Mohammed, and was seeking to turn Syria into a Salafi state.

“This accusation was made when we took to the streets, demanding freedom for the Syrian people. I am now wanted by the security agencies, which are trying to arrest me. I declare, in sound mind and of my own volition, that we, the free Syrian people, will not back down until our one and only demand is met: the toppling of the regime. We are not Salafis, and there is no truth to the regime's claims about armed groups or a Salafi emirate,” Mr. Sarut said.

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