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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Saudi Arabia mulls granting women access to stadia

Source: Al Arabiya

By James M. Dorsey

Saudi Arabia’s secretive ruling family is mulling allowing women to attend soccer matches. No Saudi official has suggested that the controversial issue is under discussion but if past experience is any indication, a series of statements and denials suggests that a debate is underway.

The debate would be a revival of closed door discussions that has been waged on and off for the past two years. Attempting to assess debates within the secretive family is not dissimilar to Kremlinology, the speculative science analysts developed in an effort to understand the inner workings of the Soviet leadership.

Granting women sporting rights in the kingdom that in most parts of the world would be taken for granted takes on added significance with the Saudi Football Federation’s recent suggestion that the kingdom will compete against the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Thailand and Iran for the right to host the 2019 Asia Cup; hints that Saudi Arabia may field a serious candidate for next year’s election of a new head of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the acquisition by Saudi Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad  of a 50 percent stake in third tier English cub Sheffield United.

The moves that would that would project Saudi Arabia on the global soccer map are not without risk as Qatar and Abu Dhabi have learnt the hard way. Qatar had expected to be cheered when it won the hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup, but has since had to deal with a barrage of criticism, negative publicity and demands that the tournament’s venue be moved. Recent improvements in the material conditions of foreign labor, who constitute a majority of the Gulf state’s population, are the result of a threat by international trade unions and human rights groups to boycott the World Cup and companies involved in the construction of infrastructure related to the tournament if Qatar fails to adhere to international labor standards.

Human Rights Watch last month accused the UAE of using its ownership of English Premier League club Manchester City and move into the United States’ Major League Soccer to polish an image increasingly tarnished by autocratic and counterrevolutionary policies, including the recent sentencing of scores of dissidents on charges of plotting to overthrow the government and UAE support for the military coup that ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi.

A country that is developing its first national sports plan for men only; lacks physical education for girls in public schools; forces women’s soccer clubs to operate in a legal and social nether land; bans women from driving, travelling without authorization from a male relative and working in a host of professions; and when it was forced last year by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to field women athletes chose two minor expatriates, Saudi Arabia is particularly vulnerable to criticism.

In minor concessions, Saudi Arabia’s religious police said earlier this year that women would be allowed to ride bikes and motorbikes in recreational areas provided that they were properly dressed and accompanied by a male relative. Authorities also announced that they would allow girl’s physical education in private schools as long as it was in line with Islamic law.

Saudi Football Federation (SFF) president Ahmed Eid Alharbi, a storied former goalkeeper who became the kingdom’s first elected sports official after his predecessor, a member of the ruling family, was forced under fan pressure to step down, has hinted at the economic impact of allowing women to attend soccer matches would have.

He said earlier this year that the creation of facilities for women would increase capacity at stadiums by 15 percent. Alharbi said the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Stadium in Jeddah would be the first to accommodate up to 32,000 women followed by the King Abdullah City stadium in the capital in 2014. Saudi Arabia, which enforces strict gender segregation, first announced in 2012 plans to upgrade the Jeddah stadium to enable women to enter.

Alharbi later qualified his remarks by saying that the decision to lift the ban on women was not his. “A decision like this is a sovereign decision. Neither I nor SAFF can make it. Only the political leadership in this country can make that decision,” he said.

Prospects for women’s attendance were further thrown into doubt in the past week when Prince Nawaf bin Faisal, the head of the youth welfare authority who resigned as head of the national soccer body, and the SFF denied that women would be granted access to the King Fahad Stadium in Riyadh during last week’s friendly against New Zealand. The denial was issued after the stadium’s manager, Sulaiman al-Yousef, manager of King Fahad Stadium, announced that foreign women and children would be permitted to watch the match. A picture on the website of the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television network of a few women and children in the stadium appeared to counter the denial.

It would not be the first time that Saudi Arabia succumbed to pressure. Protests by Sweden in 2006 in advance of a friendly in Riyadh persuaded the kingdom to allow Swedish women to attend separated from men by seating them in areas reserved for the media

The debate about women’s access to soccer matches is being waged against the backdrop of a series of anti-government incidents in the wake of last year’s resignation of Prince Nawaf. A Facebook page entitled Nasrawi Revolution demanded the resignation of Prince Faisal bin Turki, the owner of storied Riyadh club Al Nasser FC and a burly nephew of King Abdullah who sports a mustache and chin hair. A You Tube video captured Prince Faisal seemingly being pelted and chanted against as he rushed off the soccer pitch after rudely shoving a security official aside.

“Everything is upside down. Revolution is possible. There is change, but it is slow. It has to be fast. Nobody knows what will happen,” said a Saudi sports journalist referring to broader discontent in the kingdom that goes far beyond soccer.

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

Saudi Arabia to allow women into stadiums

Protests persuade Saudi prince to leave the pitch

By James M. Dorsey

Saudi Arabia, under domestic and international pressure to grant women sporting rights, is creating separate stadium sections so that female spectators and journalists can attend soccer matches in a country that has no public physical education or sporting facilities for women.

The move announced by the recently elected head of the Saudi Football Federation, Ahmed Eid Alharbi, a storied player believed to be a reformer, also comes as soccer is emerging as a focal point of dissent in the conservative kingdom.

Saudi Arabia has been slow in granting limited enhancement of women’s rights in response to demands by activists. Women in Saudi Arabia are banned from driving, travelling without authorization from a male relative and banned from working in a host of professions. Saudi Arabia’s religious police said last month that women would be allowed to ride bikes and motorbikes in recreational areas provided that they were properly dressed and accompanied by a male relative.

Saudi Arabia recently also announced that it would allow girl’s physical education in private schools as long as they do so in line with Islamic law. Yet, a five-year national sports plan, the kingdom’s first, currently being drafted does not make provisions for women’s sports. Saudi sources say the government is also for the first time considering licensing women’s soccer clubs.

Saudi Arabia last year sent under pressure from the International Olympic Committee women athletes, albeit expatriate ones, to the 2012 London Olympics, the first time Saudi women competed in an international tournament. The kingdom is also under pressure from the West Asian Football Federation, which earlier this year, issued guidelines to ensure that women have equal rights and opportunities in soccer.

Speaking at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, according to Saudi press reports, Mr. Alharbi hinted at the economic impact of allowing women to attend matches by saying that the creation of facilities for them would increase capacity at various stadiums by 15 percent. He said the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Stadium in Jeddah would be the first to accommodate up to 32,000 women followed by the King Abdullah City stadium in the capital in 2014. Saudi Arabia, which enforces strict gender segregation, first announced in 2012 plans to upgrade the Jeddah stadium to enable women to enter.

Meanwhile, in the latest politically-loaded soccer incident, Al Ittihad SC of Jeddah, filed a complaint against Riyadh’s Al Hilal SC after an Al Ittihad official and fans tweeted and chanted racist remarks. Al Ittihad, which has a number of dark-skinned Saudi players, and Al Hilal are among Saudi Arabia’s top clubs.

“The last match between Al-Hilal and Al-Ittihad clearly revealed the indecency of Al-Ittihad players through two movements – one from ‘the monkey’ Fahd Al-Muwallad who did not stop proceeding when Muhammad Al-Qarni was injured in a jostle with him. Secondly, (they) did not fulfill the commitment to Majed Al-Murshidi, and did not greet or thank him,” Saud Al-Sahli, assistant director of public relations and announcer at King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh, said on Twitter. Al Hilal fans chanted Some Al-Hilal fans had shouted “Nigger, Nigger” during the match earlier this month. Messrs. Al-Muwallad and Al-Qarni are both dark-skinned.

Saudi newspapers warned that racist incidents threaten to rekindle religious sectarianism, tribalism, and regionalism in the kingdom, in part a reference to Shiite Muslim protests in the oil-rich Eastern Province. 

“The racist and sectarian utterances of sports fans should not be punished by fines alone, as some heads of the sports clubs are immensely rich and can pay the fines against their fans without feeling any burden. There should be harsher punishments, including a ban on the fans from entering the stadiums, reducing the club’s league points or even downgrading it to a lower division,” the Saudi Gazette said in an editorial.

Members of the royal family with positions in Saudi soccer or who own clubs have been repeatedly in the past year in the firing line of disgruntled fans. A Facebook page entitled Nasrawi Revolution demands the resignation of Prince Faisal bin Turki, the owner of storied Riyadh club Al Nasser FC and a burly nephew of King Abdullah who sports a mustache and chin hair. A You Tube video captured Prince Faisal seemingly being pelted and chanted against as he rushed off the soccer pitch after rudely shoving a security official aside.

The campaign against Prince Faisal follows last year’s unprecedented resignation of Prince Nawaf bin Feisal as head of the Saudi Football Federation (SFF), the first royal to be persuaded by public pressure step down in a region where monarchial control of the sport is seen as politically important.

Prince Nawaf’s resignation led to the election of Mr. Alharbi, a commoner, in a country that views free and fair polling as a Western concept that is inappropriate for the kingdom. Prince Nawaf retained his position as head of the Saudi Olympic Committee and the senior official responsible for youth welfare that effectively controls the SFF.

Nevertheless, the resignation of Prince Nawaf and the campaign against Prince Faisal gains added significance in a nation in which the results of premier league clubs associated with various members of the kingdom’s secretive royal family are seen as a barometer of their relative status, particularly at a time that its septuagenarian and octogenarian leaders prepare for a gradual generational transition.

Said a Saudi journalist, summing up the mood among fans and many other Saudis: “Everything is upside down. Revolution is possible. There is change, but it is slow. It has to be fast. Nobody knows what will happen.”

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.

Soccer emerges as focal point of dissent in Saudi Arabia

Prince Faisal rushes off the pitch

By James M. Dorsey

Soccer, alongside minority Shiite Muslims and relatives of imprisoned government critics, is emerging as a focal point of dissent in Saudi Arabia, an oil-rich kingdom that despite banning demonstrations by law is struggling to fend off the waves of change sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.

Fan pressure is evolving as a potent tool in the absence of the right to protest. It follows intermittent demonstrations and at times deadly clashes with security forces in the kingdom’s predominantly Shiite Eastern Province that hosts its major oil fields as well protests by family members of activists imprisoned for lengthy periods of time without being charged.

In the latest assertion of fan power, a Facebook page entitled Nasrawi Revolution demands the resignation of Prince Faisal bin Turki, the owner of storied Riyadh club Al Nasser FC and a burly nephew of King Abdullah who sports a mustache and chin hair. A You Tube video captured Prince Faisal seemingly being pelted and chanted against as he rushed off the soccer pitch after rudely shoving a security official aside.

The campaign against Prince Faisal follows last year’s unprecedented resignation of Prince Nawaf bin Feisal as head of the Saudi Football Federation (SFF), the first royal to be persuaded by public pressure step down in a region where monarchial control of the sport is seen as politically important.

Prince Nawaf’s resignation led to the election of a commoner, storied former player Ahmed Eid Alharbi widely viewed as a reformer and proponent of women’s soccer, in a country that views free and fair polling as a Western concept that is inappropriate for the kingdom. Prince Nawaf retained his position as head of the Saudi Olympic Committee and the senior official responsible for youth welfare that effectively controls the SFF.

Nevertheless, the resignation of Prince Nawaf and the campaign against Prince Faisal gains added significance in a nation in which the results of premier league clubs associated with various members of the kingdom’s secretive royal family are seen as a barometer of their relative status, particularly at a time that its septuagenarian and octogenarian leaders prepare for a gradual generational transition.

“The Saudis are extremely worried. Soccer clubs rather than the mosque are likely to be the center of the revolution. Kids go more to stadiums than to mosques. They are not religious, they are ruled by religious dogma,” says Washington-based Saudi dissident Ali al-Ahmad, who heads the Gulf Institute. Mr. Al-Ahmad was referring to the power of clerics preaching Wahhabism, the puritan interpretation of Islam developed by 18^thcentury preacher Mohammed Abdul Wahhab. Saudi Arabia’s ruling Al Saud family established the kingdom with the help of the Wahhabis who in return were granted the right to ensure that their views would dominate public life.

Sport sources in the soccer-crazy kingdom say the authorities are seeking to reduce soccer’s popularity by emphasizing other sports like athletics and handball in policy and fund-raising while at the same time preparing to professionalize and further commercialize the sport using the English Premier League as a model.

“They are identifying what talent is available in the kingdom. Football is a participatory sport. They want to emphasize the social aspects of other sports. Football won only one medal in the last Asian Games. They think they can score better in other sports. There are parallel agendas with competition about who gets the visibility,” one source said.

Soccer’s popularity and competition with religion was evident during the 2010 World Cup when authorities parked trucks in front of Internet and other cafes, rolled out red carpets and urged Saudis watching matches on television screens to interrupt at prayer time.

The clergy’s puritan view of life that only allowed for the emergence of soccer in the 1950s is under pressure with clerics being forced to retreat from their refusal to permit physical education for girls and women’s sports facilities.  Saudi Arabia recently announced it would allow girl’s physical education in private schools as long as they do so in line with Islamic law. Yet, a five-year national sports plan, the kingdom’s first, currently being drafted does not make provisions for women’s sports.

In a further move, sports sources say Saudi Arabia may be on the verge of licensing women’s soccer clubs that currently operate in a legal nether land often with the help of more liberal members of the royal family. These opportunities are however largely accessible only to women from wealthier families. Deputy Minister of Education for Women's Affairs, Nora al-Fayez, was recently quoted as saying that public schools could follow suit.

With sports facilities for women almost non-existent, women are forced to for example to jog dressed so that men cannot see their bodies. Similarly, there are no opportunities to train for international tournaments. Saudi Arabia last year fielded under pressure from the International Olympic Committee for the first time women – albeit expatriate ones- at an international competition during the London Olympics. In the kingdom itself, the all-women Princess Nora Bint Abdul Rahman University is the only institution of higher education that has sports facilities, including a swimming pool, tennis court and exercise area for females.

Columnist Abdulateef al-Mulhim in the Arab News recently credited women for Al Fateh SC’s success in winning the Saudi soccer championship. The victory broke a cycle of poor performance that had depressed a key manager of the club based in the city of Al Mubaraz, Al Mulhim wrote.

“His mother was the one who encouraged him not to give up and gave him the financial support needed for running the club. Ironically, she even advised him about many of the deals which involved the transfer of the best players to the club… As time passed, people knew of more women from the families in Al Mubaraz city.

In the official website, there are more women’s names who are honorary members of this club such as, Fathyah, Ayshah and Fatimah Al Rashid. There are other ladies from other families who also were part of the general public relations through the social media means and through their direct support…. In other words, many young men and women from the city of Al Mubaraz put their hands together and accomplished a dream for being the best in the Kingdom. Last year, this club was the most admired for its performance and for the information of the readers,” Al Mulhim said.

Al Mulhim’s highlighting of the women of Al Mubaraz as well as the introduction of sports in schools positions sports as a key platform for enhancing women’s rights in which women retain economic rights but are even more restricted than men in their political rights and personal lives.

Nevertheless, it reflects gradual change. Women are prominent in various professions, will be allowed to run for office and vote for the first time in the 2015 municipal elections, were last year admitted to the more or less toothless top advisory council to the king and permitted to be sales’ clerks in female apparel shops and ride motorcycles and bikes in parks properly dressed and accompanied by a male relative. The ban, however, on driving remains in place.

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.

Middle East soccer associations campaign for women’s right to play

By James M. Dorsey

Middle Eastern soccer associations have launched a campaign to put women’s soccer on par with men’s football in a region in which a woman’s right to play and pursue an athletic career remains controversial and at a time at which political Islam is on the rise.

The associations announced the campaign at the end of a two-day seminar in the Jordanian capital Amman organized by the West Asian Football Federation (WAFF) and the Asian Football Development Project (AFDP). Glaringly absent among the representatives of the 13 Middle Eastern WAFF members was Saudi Arabia where women’s soccer exists at best in a political and legal nether land as well as Yemen.

The campaign comes as women are demanding greater rights in a part of the world that has entered a period of dramatic political and social change. Popular revolts in the past two years have toppled the autocratic leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, sparked a bloody civil war in Syria and prompted numerous other states to adopt policies designed to shield themselves against a wave of protest that is unlikely to leave any Middle Eastern nation untouched.

A statement at the end of the seminar chaired by FIFA Vice President and AFDP Chairman Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein defined “an athletic woman” as “an empowered woman who further empowers her community.” In a rebuttal of opposition to women’s soccer among some Islamists across the region and more conservative segments of Middle Eastern society the seminar stressed that women’s soccer did not demean cultural and traditional values.

In doing so, the associations backed by representatives of the United Nations, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and the English Football Association, put themselves at the forefront of efforts to secure equality and women’s rights. The seminar’s statement emphasized the right of women to play soccer irrespective of culture, religion and race; a women’s right to opt for soccer as a career rather than only as a sport; and soccer’s ability to promote gender equality and level the playing field on and off the pitch.

The statement called further for the appointment of women to the boards of WAFF member associations, establishment of a WAFF women’s committee, creation of Under-16 and Under-19 women competitions in the Middle East (West Asia) as well as the compulsory rotation of hosting of subsidized WAFF women competitions.

With Saudi Arabia unlikely to comply with the initiative, It was not immediately clear whether member associations who refused to participate would be sanctioned, and if so, how. The statement, however, singled out Saudi Arabia by explicitly stating that the kingdom would be included in women’s tournaments. The statement said it would kick start its campaign with a WAFF Girls Football Festival on International Women’s Day on March 8.

In campaigning for women’s rights, WAFF has its work cut out for it not only with regard to Saudi Arabia but also in relation to many of its members who did sign on to the focus on women. “Female athletes in the Middle East face pressures that include family, religion, politics, and culture,” said a recent study entitled ‘Muslim Female Athletes and the Hijab’ by Geoff Harkness, a sociologist at Northwestern University’s campus in Qatar, and one of his basketball playing students, Samira Islam.

Resistance to women’s sports is moreover not restricted to Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa. Palestine’s women soccer team includes 14 Christians and only four Muslims but a majority of the team has similar tales to tell about the obstacles they needed to overcome and the initial resistance they met from their families.

Human Rights Watch last year accused Saudi Arabia of kowtowing to assertions by the country's powerful conservative Muslim clerics that female sports constitute "steps of the devil" that will encourage immorality and reduce women's chances of meeting the requirements for marriage. The group’s charges contained in a report entitled “’Steps of the Devil’ came on the heels of the kingdom backtracking on a plan to build its first stadium especially designed to allow women who are currently barred from attending soccer matches because of the kingdom’s strict public gender segregation to watch games. The planned stadium was supposed to open in 2014.

Saudi Arabia, which does not have physical education for girls in schools and has hired consultants to draft its first ever five-year national sports plan but for men only, bowed to pressure last year to field for the first time ever women athletes at an international tournament, the London Olympics. It did so by fielding two expatriate Saudi females.

Women nonetheless play an important role in sporadic anti-government protests in Saudi Arabia, a country where discontent is simmering at the surface. Authorities earlier this month arrested 18 women in Buraida, a bulwark of Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia’s puritan interpretation of Islam, who were protesting the long-term detention of relatives without charges on suspicion of terrorism.

Women in Iran have the right to play provided their uniforms are compliant with Islamic precepts but like in Saudi Arabia are also barred from attending matches in all-men stadiums as spectators. Two women highlighted the issue during a World Cup qualifier last year when they smuggled themselves into the stadium dressed as men only to reveal themselves publicly after the match.

For their part, Kuwaiti Islamists denounced the Gulf University for Science and Technology’s organization of a soccer tournament for Gulf women teams. “Women playing football is unacceptable and contrary to human nature and good customs. The government has to step in and drop the tournament,” Kuwait’s Al Wasat newspaper quoted member of parliament Waleed al-Tabtabai as saying at the time.

Mr. Tabtabai was one of a number of deputies who earlier criticized the government and sports executives for allowing the Kuwaiti women’s national soccer team to take part in the Third West Asian Women Soccer Tournament in Abu Dhabi. The members of parliament charged that the women’s participation had been illegal and a waste of money. “Football is not meant for women, anyway,” Mr. Tabtabai said.

Prince Ali has however put conservatives on the defensive with his successful campaign last year to get FIFA to agree to observant Muslim soccer players wearing a headdress that complies with Islamic precepts as well as the world soccer body’s safety and security standards. The move set the stage for the WAFF campaign by taking away one major obstacle to women’s sports having the same status of the athletic endeavors of men.

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

World Cup qualifier: A battle for Iranian women’s rights

Fatma Iktasari second from left) and Shabnam Kazimi (second from right) defy ban on women (Source:  http://bahal31.persianblog.ir) 

By James M. Dorsey

When Iran beat favourite South Korea this week in a 2014 World Cup qualifier, it was not the only battle being fought in Tehran’s Azadi stadium. So was the fight for the right of women to attend soccer matches in the Islamic Republic.

Fatma Iktasari and Shabnam Kazimi, dressed in the men’s clothes they wore to disguise themselves and illegally enter the stadium to watch the match, showed the victory sign in a picture published on an Iranian blog after the match. They were posing together with male friends and an Iranian flag.

A poem accompanying the picture read:

“Heroes, warriors

Dream one day of a workshop with the kids in the ‘freedom’ gym

The name ‘Iran’ did not vanish until the moment of victory and yelling

The days of Good Hope to India

My people even a little bit happy, happiness experienced once again

I was glad that we were always on their side.”

The two women’s act of defiance like an earlier apparent willingness by the Iranian soccer federation to allow women into stadium for Asian Football Confederation (AFC) championship matches this summer sparked significant debate on Iranian social media networks with many participants praising the two women’s courage.

Their protest highlighted the schizophrenic conditions of women’s soccer in the Islamic republic where women, properly dressed in line with Islamic precepts, are allowed to play soccer in front of all-women audiences but are banned from entering an all-men stadium as spectators.

The protest also revived an effort in the middle of the last decade by women soccer fans to defy the ban by dressing up as men. The campaign was depicted in Offside by filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who is currently serving a six year jail sentence for “creating propaganda against the Iranian republic.” Mr. Panahi, a key figure in Iran's cinematic New Wave movement, was further banned from film making, travel and speaking to the media for a period of 20 years.

Offside described the fictionalized arrest by police of six young women and girls who smuggled themselves dressed as men into Tehran's stadium to watch Iran's national team play Bahrain. A more recent movie, Shirin Was A Canary, recounts the tale of a girl who is expelled from school for her love of soccer

The campaign waged albeit by a small group of women prompted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to lift the ban in 2006 in a move that was overruled in an early public disagreement between the two men.

Grand Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani argued at the time that "women looking at a man's body even if not for the sake of gratification is inappropriate.”

Some sources close to the Iranian government believe however that Mr. Khamenei may as yet relent on the issue of women’s attendance at soccer matches in advance of next year’s presidential election. “Given the economic situation, Khamenei needs to give social groups something,” one source said.

Solmaz Sharif, the founder of Shirzanan, an on-line Farsi-language women’s sports website created after she was refused a license to establish a magazine, highlighted in a recent commentary in The Huffington Post the inherent contradictions in Iranian policy after the women’s volleyball team was allowed to compete in front of mixed gender audience at the London Olympics.

“Although the Iranian government has permitted some women's teams to participate in international competitions, it greatly restricts their participation in domestic games. For instance, no men are allowed to watch women's games in Iran. This raises a few questions about the intentions of Iranian sporting officials: If it is "Islamic enough" for women to play in front of global audiences, then why they can't play in Iran? And such international participation doesn't meet Islamic requirements, did the Iranian government merely agree with it to avoid international pressure?” Ms. Sharif wrote.

Hopes were dashed this summer when contrary to expectation the AFC failed to impose its standards by insisting that women would be allowed into the stadium to watch AFC Under-16 Championship matches that were being played in Iran.

The hopes were sparked when AFC Director of National Team competition Shin Mangal was quoted by Shiite news agency Shafaqna as saying that "so far as AFC is concerned, there should be no sex discrimination regarding the presence of men and women at stadiums."

The AFC said it had received assurances from Ali Kaffashian, the head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Football Federation (IRIFF) that it would comply with AFC regulations. The AFC quoted Mr. Kaffashian as saying at the drawing of the groups for the tournament that the IRIFF is “fully ready to follow all the requirements and instructions from AFC.”

The Iranian soccer boss repeated his position in remarks to Iranian reformist newspaper Sharq. In an editorial the newspaper said "the youth championships could create a great change in Iranian football. They are an excellent opportunity."

An estimated 1,000 women in a rare instance were allowed last year into the Azadi stadium to commemorate the death of Nasser Hejazi, an internationally acclaimed defender who became in his last days an outspoken critic of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s economic policy.

The ceremony turned into an anti-Ahmadinejad protest with the crowds shouting “Hejazi, you spoke in the name of the people” “Goodbye Hejazi, today the brave are mourning.”

In late 1997 in Tehran, some 5,000 women stormed the stadium in protest the ban on women to celebrate revolutionary Iran’s first ever qualification for the World Cup finals. The protest erupted barely a month after the election of Mohammed Khatami as president at a time of anticipated liberalization. Men and women danced in the streets together to blacklisted music and sang nationalist songs as they did six months later when Iran defeated the United States.

“In terms of freedom of expression, soccer stadiums are nearly as important as the Internet in Iran now. The protest is more secure there because the police can't arrest thousands of people at once. State television broadcasts many matches live and the people use it as a stage for resistance. They're showing banners to the cameras and chanting protest songs which is why some games are broadcast without sound now,” says an Iranian sports journalist.

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.

Saudi Arabia to allow women to compete in London Olympics

Dalma Rushdi Malhas, Saudi Arabia's likely female Olympic athlete

By James M. Dorsey

Saudi Arabia, in a sudden turnabout has lifted its ban on women athletes competing in international tournaments little more than a week after the death of Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, an opponent of women’s participation in global sports events.

It was not immediately clear what prompted the reversal that was announced in a statement by the Saudi embassy in London. A Saudi women equestrian is expected to be the conservative kingdom’s only female athlete likely to qualify for next month’s London Olympics. The kingdom does not encourage women’s sports, offer girls physical education in public schools or include women in its national sports plan.

The embassy statement followed months of sea-saw pronouncements on whether women would be allowed to compete in London, topped in April by a statement by Prince Nayef categorically ruling out. Prince Nayef, largely viewed as a conservative hardliner with close ties to Saudi Arabia’s religious leadership was succeeded as crown prince by Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz who is believed to be more liberal.

"The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is looking forward to full participation" in the Olympic Games. "The Saudi Olympic Committee will oversee participation of female competitors who qualify," the Saudi embassy in London said.

If indeed implemented it would mark the first time that Saudi women are allowed to officially participate in an international sports tournament and would mean that the kingdom no longer is the only country in the world that refuses to allow women to compete on a global scale.

The embassy statement came at a time that Saudi women have been campaigning for greater rights, focusing on demands to lift a ban on women driving. Proponents of women’s driving submitted earlier this month a petition to King Abdullah with some 600 signatures.

Women driving however has so far been a bridge too far for the king. Scores of women who defied the ban in the past year have been arrested and forced to sign pledges that they would not drive again.  

Manal al-Sharif was detained in May of last year for nine days after she videotaped herself flouting the ban on women driving by getting behind a steering wheel and driving. She was released only after signing a statement promising that she would stop agitating for women's rights.

Prince Nayef dashed hopes that Saudi women would be allowed to participate in the Olympics a month after initially endorsed it by declaring in April that “female sports activity has not existed (in the kingdom) and there is no move thereto in this regard. At present, we are not embracing any female Saudi participation in the Olympics or other international championships.”

The International Olympic Committee which has been negotiating with Saudi Arabia about a lifting of the ban rejected at the time Saudi suggestions that Saudi women living abroad be allowed to compete under the Olympic flag rather than as part of the official Saudi delegation.

International human rights group Human Rights Watch accused Saudi Arabia in February of kowtowing to assertions by the country's powerful conservative Muslim clerics that female sports constitute "steps of the devil" that will encourage immorality and reduce women's chances of meeting the requirements for marriage.

The group’s charges contained in a report entitled “’Steps of the Devil’ came on the heels of the kingdom backtracking on a plan to build its first stadium especially designed to allow women who are currently barred from attending soccer matches because of the kingdom’s strict public gender segregation to watch games. The planned stadium was supposed to open in 2014.

The report urged the IOC to require Saudi Arabia to legalize women's sports as a condition for its participation in Olympic games.

The embassy statement takes on broader significance coming at a time that King Abdullah is seeking to counter attempts by conservative clerics to thwart his minimal reforms and circumvent post-9/11 restrictions on charitable donating, designed to prevent funds from flowing to militant Islamists.

It’s a delicate balancing act for more reform-minded members of the royal family like King Abdullah who rely on the clergy to support the kingdom’s efforts to contain the Middle East and North Africa’s wave of anti-government protests that have already toppled the autocratic leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen and brought Syria to the brink of civil war. Some clerics have asserted that the protests stem from the mingling of the sexes in sports.

“In the past it was only men, now it is almost half half (in stadiums). Allah knows what happens afterwards. Either way it is bad. Either people go out, they are sensing and partying and drinking and all that, so that’s negative. And if they don’t, they go out and they demonstrate and they’re angry and they destroy property and they destroy cars and they destroy people’s business. Either way its haram (forbidden), things have to be done in moderation,” said A Saudi-backed imam Abu Abdellah of the As-Sunnah mosque in Kissimee, Florida. His statement was in line with a series of pronouncements by senior religious leaders in the kingdom itself.

Show-jumper Dalma Rushdi Malhas is likely to be Saudi Arabia’s only female representative in London if the kingdom adheres to the new policy announced by its London. Ms. Malhas in 2010 became the first Saudi woman to compete in the Youth Olympics, where she won a bronze participating on an individual basis rather than as part of a Saudi team.

"I am determined to give my best to reach their level one day, and prove that all women athletes, all over the world, should be given equal opportunities," 20-year old Ms. Malhas said in February at a conference where breaking with Saudi tradition she spoke with her hair uncovered.

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

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

By James M. Dorsey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Qatari Olympic women athletes spotlight Wahhabi schism

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

By James M. Dorsey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saudi imams warn against mixing of sports, politics and protest

Saudi Grand Mufti: Protesters are sinful

By James M. Dorsey

Saudi and ultra-conservative imams have warned in separate statements against the mixing of sports and politics and protests against autocratic regimes, which, according to some, results from of the mingling of the sexes in sports.

The warnings come against the backdrop of Saudi efforts to shield the Gulf from the wave of popular uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North Africa, renewed focus on the role of militant soccer fans opposing military rule in Egypt and pressure on the kingdom to allow women to compete for the first time in an international tournament during the London Olympics.

Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Sheikh quoted in the kingdom's Al Watan newspaper warned that the protests that have already toppled the leaders of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen and brought Syria to the brink of civil war were sinful. "The schism, instability, the malfunctioning of security and the breakdown of unity that Islamic countries are facing these days is a result of the sins of the public and their transgressions," Sheikh Abdulaziz said.

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

“So there is nothing wrong with watching and practicing your favourite sport as long as you adhere to the norms. When it comes to the way you dress and the way you behave, where you’re going to be, what are you going to be listening to; are you going to be mingling in crowds you are not supposed to be mingling with? All of those things do matter when you are practicing or you are watching your favourite sport,” the imam said.

The clerics’ statements came as Saudi Arabia prepares for a summit of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in which it hopes to foist closer political and military cooperation on its largely reluctant co-members Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and the UAE. Bahrain, which last year brutally squashed with Saudi assistance an uprising against its minority Sunni Muslin rulers, is likely to be the only GCC state to fully endorse the notion of a political union.

The statements also come as International Olympics Committee president Jacques Rogge is under pressure to make good on his pledges earlier this year to stand for gender equality by banning Saudi Arabia from this year’s London Olympics if it fails to field women athletes. A Human Rights Watch report released in February, called on Saudi Arabia to protect women's equal right to sports and urged the IOC to live up to its charter, which prohibits discrimination, or face a ban similar to that imposed on Afghanistan in 1999 partly for its exclusion of female athletes.

With Qatar and Brunei expected to have women athletes for the first time this year in their delegations, Saudi Arabia would be the only country in the world that still refuses to allow women to compete. The kingdom has recently hinted that it would not stand against Saudi women living abroad competing, but would not field athletes from the kingdom itself.

In separate statements, two Saudi religious scholars admonished soccer players that bad behaviour could lead to a ban on public attendance of matches. It was not immediately clear what incidents of bad behaviour they were referring to.

Sheikh Abdullah bin Suleiman Al Manei, a member of the Gulf Kingdom’s supreme scholars committee and an advisor to King Abdullah warned that “the spread of such (bad) acts on play fields is a clear indicator of a decline in moral values and the transformation of sport from fair competition into bigotry. The continuation of these bad phenomena which pose a threat to the ethical values of our sons makes the attendance of these matches a hateful thing. This means that going to these matches could become prohibited because what is happening there has a strong negative impact on the society.”

In a statement of his own, Sheikh Abdullah Al Mutlaq, another member of the supreme committee, denounced players for allegedly faking incidents in a bid to get a referee to award a penalty in their team’s favour. “These are acts of deception, which is hated and forbidden in Islam…..the sin becomes worse when the player swears by Allah falsely…players should refrain from such wrong acts as they have become a bad example for the young generation,” Sheikh Al Mutlaq said without reference to specific incidents.

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

Egyptian feminists challenge militant soccer fan chauvinism

Egyptian women demand uninhibited right to protest (Source: BikyaMasr)

By James M. Dorsey

An Egyptian feminist group has challenged militant soccer fans that played a key role in toppling president Hosni Mubarak to recognise women's rights to unrestricted protest.

The challenge exposes conservatism that is deeply rooted in Egyptian society and cuts across ideological, cultural and religious fault lines. It lays bare differing interpretations of concepts such as diversity, freedom and faith and highlights a battle by women who were prominent in the campaign to overthrow Mr. Mubarak to have their rights recognised in post-revolt Egypt.

The women confront a conservatism that pervades the Middle East and North Africa as illustrated by the recent creation of a soccer league in the United Arab Emirates that allows women to play behind closed doors in the absence of men as well as Saudi Arabia's struggle with the International Olympic Committee's demand that it include women among its athletes at this year's London Olympics.

UAE and Kuwaiti royals joined prominent foreign representatives this week at a two day conference to encourage women’s participants in sports and the launch of the Fatima Bint Mubarak Women's Sports Awards, named after the third wife of the founder of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who heads the Family Development Foundation.

Egyptian women are battling to have their rights acknowledged on two fronts: recognition by their often socially conservative revolutionary male counterparts as well as Egypt's post-Mubarak military rulers who have systematically humiliated detained women protesters by subjecting them to virginity tests. A court this week acquitted a military doctor who conducted the tests.

More secular Egyptian women fear that the rise of Islamists further threatens achievement of their rights. Islamists have dissolved the Women's Council, charging that it was a creation of Suzanne Mubarak, the ousted president's widely despised wife. Islamist members of parliament have also proposed the establishment of a family ministry that would operate in accordance with Islamic law and roll back legal advances introduced by the Mubarak regime.

The feminists issued their challenge in response to a decision by the ultras -- militant, highly politicised, soccer fans -- to allow women to participate in their 16-day old sit-in in front of parliament only during daytime and to ban them at night starting from 22:00.

The ultras are demanding justice for 74 of their comrades who died in a soccer brawl in the Suez Canal city of Port Said that they believe was instigated by the government in retaliation for their role in the ousting of Mr. Mubarak and their militant opposition to his military successors.

In a statement quoted on the Egyptian news website Bikya Masr, the Independent Egyptian Women's Union said that those "who carry the flame of liberty against the oppressive powers should respect it first." They said that their understanding of diversity and faith ruled out restricting women's right to protest.

The battle for women's rights is one that is being waged by different women's groups -- secular and religious -- whose definition of women’s rights varies both among Middle Eastern and North African groups as well as Western ones.

Western groups objected last month to a decision by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) to allow observant Muslim women to wear a headdress that meets their religious and cultural requirements as well as safety and security standards.

The decision by the IFAB, which governs the rules of professional soccer, was intended to open opportunity to a large number of observant Muslim women who had been excluded from a professional career because of what they saw as a conflict between the rules of their faith and the rules of the game.

The conservatism is most deep-seated in Saudi Arabia, home to Wahhabism, one of the world's most puritan and restrictive interpretations of Islam that allows women to travel abroad only with the permission of a male guardian and bans them from driving. The kingdom, under threat of exclusion from the London Olympics if it fails to field women athletes and pressured by human rights groups has responded publicly with a series of test balloons on how to respond.

Saudi officials first leaked a story earlier this year about a plan to build the kingdom’s first stadium especially designed to accommodate women who are currently barred from attending soccer matches because of the kingdom’s strict public gender segregation. The planned stadium was supposed to open in 2014. Saudi media subsequently reported that the plan had been shelved.

Deputy education minister for female student affairs  Noura al-Fayez said in two letters addressed to Human Rights Watch that the government was working to set up a “comprehensive physical education programme”, including sports facilities and a health and nutrition awareness scheme “as part of its national strategy for physical education for boys and girls”, according to the daily al-Watan newspaper. Ms. Al-Fayez said physical education for girls was under consideration “as one of the priorities of the ministry's leadership”.

The letters didn’t stop Human Rights Watch from accusing Saudi Arabia in a report of kowtowing to assertions by the country's powerful conservative Muslim clerics that female sports constitute "steps of the devil" that will encourage immorality and reduce women's chances of meeting the requirements for marriage.

The kingdom’s toothless Shura or Advisory Council moreover issued regulations for women's sports clubs, but conservative religious forces often have the final say in whether they are implemented or not. Saudi Arabia’s official sports body, the General Presidency of Youth Welfare, presided by a member of the royal family, Prince Nawaf Bin Faisal, only caters to men. As a result, the kingdom last year hired a consultant to develop its first national sports plan - for men only.

Al Hayat newspaper, owned by a Saudi royal, reported last month that Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud had approved plans to send female athletes to the London Olympics. That report was quickly squashed with the media quoting Prince Nayef as reversing his statement.

Prince Nawaf subsequently went a step further by telling a news conference: “Female sports activity has not existed (in the kingdom) and there is no move thereto in this regard. At present, we are not embracing any female Saudi participation in the Olympics or other international championships.”

Despite Saudi women in the kingdom pushing the envelope by forming private clubs of their own, Prince Nawaf asserted that the demand for women’s participation came from Saudi women living abroad. He said the kingdom would work to ensure that expatriate Saudi women seeking to compete in the Olympics on their own account rather than as official delegates would do so “in the appropriate framework and comported with Islamic law.” He said he was working with the Saudi mufti and religious scholars to guarantee that nothing “infringed upon the Muslim woman.”

Saudi Arabia adopted a similar approach at the Youth Olympics in 2010 where Saudi equestrian participated without official endorsement and won a bronze medal in show jumping. It was not immediately clear whether the approach would this time be sufficient to remove the IOC’s threat of excluding the kingdom from the Olympics.

The evident debate about women’s rights to sports is part of a far broader discussion about the position of women in Saudi society. In an unusually frank interview with the BBC, Princess Basma Bint Saud Bin Abdulaziz lambasted the kingdom’s discriminatory policies and called for the drafting of a constitution that would treat men and women equally as well as sweeping reforms, including “abusive” divorce laws, an education system that teaches “that a woman's position in society is inferior” and "that the angels will curse her if she is not submissive to her husband's needs," and a social affairs ministry that “is tolerating cruelty towards women rather than protecting them.”

To be sure the conservatism that inhibits women’s rights has support among conservative segments of the Middle East and North Africa’s female population. Three Emirate women, have launched, according to a report in The National, a behind closed doors soccer league in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the far more liberal UAE alongside the country’s national women’s team because they had no opportunity to play in an environment that banned men.

"There are some girls that don't mind playing in front of men. But there is a huge percentage of Emirati women who can't play in front of men because of cultural reasons. Those in the community who want to play the sport after university don't have a place to go. It's all open and there isn't really a place for the sport to be developed," said government employee Mariam Al Omaira, a founding partner of Irada (Determination) Sports Development Company.

The league has 84 players spread over six teams.

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.