Egyptian and international soccer figures grasp for ways to reduce Egyptian soccer violence

Egyptian stadiums: a political battlefield

By James M. Dorsey

Egyptian and international soccer officials and experts are grasping for straws as they seek to address the reasons for the deaths six weeks ago of 74 soccer fans in the worst incident in Egyptian sporting history.

At an international security conference in Qatar, the officials and experts, including Egyptian Footballers' Association president Magdy Abdel Ghani, former English Football Association vice chairman David Dein and International Conference on Sport Security executive director and head of security for the 2006 World Cup in Germany Helmut Spahn blamed the fans, the media, rivalry between clubs and lack of education for last month's lethal clash between rival militant soccer fans in the Suez Canal city of Port Said.

Absent from the discussion was the political situation in Egypt that created the environment for the violence, the years of abuse and violence in stadiums that fans endured at the hands of security forces, the quest for dignity expressed in confrontations with security forces by fans emboldened by their success last year in toppling President Hosni Mubarak and their frustration with the fact that the goals of their revolt have been sidelined.

The debate at the International Sport Security Conference in Doha about reducing violence in Egyptian soccer took place as Egypt's chief prosecutor charged 75 people, including nine police officers, with murder or negligence over the Port Said riot in which at least 74 people were killed when rival fans clashed after a game between premier league clubs Al-Masry SC and Al-Ahly SC on 1 February.

Thousands of militant fans of Al Ahly and Cairo rival Al Zamalek SC marched Thursday to the High Court in downtown Cairo to demand justice for the victims of the Port Said disaster. They chanted slogans against Egypt’s military rulers and the interior ministry and carried banners calling for revenge against the killers of their dead comrades.

“We demand specific charges, not just a general accusation for all of them like what happened this morning. We also demand a fair and speedy trial,” said Mohammed Tarek, a spokesman of Ultras Ahlawy, one of several militant, highly politicized, violence-prone, street-battled hardened soccer fan groups or ultras that played a key role in the overthrow of Mr. Mubarak. The ultras have since emerged as the most militant opponents of the military that succeeded Mr. Mubarak.

Mr. Tarek expressed concern that general charges could mean that only a few of the 75 charged would be sentenced and that senior officials may be granted leniency by accusing them of “failing to fulfill their duties, not murder."

In a show of unity, ultras of Al Ahly and its arch rival Al Zamalek SC, respected for their fearlessness and their years of standing up to the security forces, warned Egypt’s military rulers that they were “ready to sacrifice our lives for the sake of our country" and to ensure that the instigators of Port Said were swiftly brought to justice. They also warned that they would resist a crackdown on militant soccer groups.

The ultras’ militancy has forced the Egyptian Football Association (EFA) to put on hold plans for a friendly tournament behind closed doors to commemorate the Port Said victims. The tournament was intended to compensate the clubs for the cancellation of this season’s league in the wake of Port Said. The ultras had threatened to storm the pitches of the friendlies if they were played before the perpetrators of Port Said had been brought to justice.

The cancellation of the league came as registration started for candidates for Egypt’s first post-Mubarak presidential election in May.

Some ultras believe that the suspension of the league in soccer-crazy Egypt was designed to further isolate the ultras and youth groups that have lost popularity in recent months in a country that has become protest weary and yearns for a return to normalcy and economic growth. Anti-government protests and violent clashes with security forces stand in the way of focusing on the economy.

The ultras’ protest and the warnings suggest that the indictments like the debate in Doha are unlikely to contribute to pre-empting future violence.

The death of the 74 Al Ahli fans put a tragic crown on years of politically motivated violence in Egyptian stadiums and a year of militant soccer fan opposition to military rule in the wake of the toppling of Mr. Mubarak.

Egyptian Footballers' Association chief Mr. Ghani, speaking on a panel about hooliganism and violence in football at the Doha conference, blamed the Port Said violence on the militants’ use of social media.

“One of the very important facts that caused this anger and rage between fans is the inference of social media. Fans are very young which makes it easier to drive the anger and make them do acts without knowing,” Mr. Ghani said.

He charged that the ultras had planned the Port Said incident. “Before the game some of the ultras talked to each other on Facebook chat. They used the lack of policing and they prepared themselves to do something before the game because the fans of Port Said had no reason to attack the other fans - they won the game,” Mr. Ghani said.

Mr. Ghani’s remarks highlighted the gap between fans and players that has opened since the fall of Mr. Mubarak. The fans have expressed frustration with the fact that the majority of players remained on the side lines during the protests against Mr. Mubarak. To the ultras, players are hired guns willing to switch allegiances for money while management consists largely of corrupt appointees of autocratic regimes.

Al Ahly ultras unfolded a year ago a huge banner addressed to players during their team’s friendly against Harras El-Hodoud that read: "We followed you everywhere but in the hard times we didn't find you." Many reject Egypt’s national team as ‘Mubarak’s team’ rather than that of the nation. Players have since the overthrow of Mr. Mubarak pressured the ultras unsuccessfully to moderate their support tactics that include the use of fireworks, flares, smoke guns and abusive chanting because the clubs were being penalized.

Egyptian soccer star Mohamed Zidan in recent controversial remarks put a further spotlight on the gap with the fans as well as the problem Egypt and other post-revolt Arab countries face in the transition from an autocratic to a more open society and the battles being fought on the soccer pitch.

In an interview with satellite channel CBC Egypt, Mr. Zidan, a striker in the Egyptian national team and for Germany’s FSV Mainz 05, focused attention on the neo-patriarchal role of Arab autocrats as their nation’s father figure and the refusal of a majority of soccer players and managers to join the region’s anti-autocratic revolts despite the fact that militant soccer fans of rival clubs stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the mass protests last year against Mr. Mubarak.

“I kissed Mubarak’s hand when he honored Egypt after the 2010 African Cup of Nations as I saw him as a father of all Egyptians,” Mr. Zidan said reflecting the attitude of most soccer players and managers in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world.

Nonetheless, Port Said created an opening for reconciliation between players and fans. In a sign of the changing times, the Al Ahly ultras recently apologized on an especially created Facebook page named “We are sorry Shika” to Zamalek winger Mahmoud Abdel-Razek aka Shikabala, widely viewed as Egypt’s top player, for routinely abusing him verbally during their clubs’ derbies. The abuse frequently led to Shikabala and Al Ahly fans trading insults in heated exchanges.

Responding in an interview on the Zamalek club’s website, Shikabala welcomed the apology. “Despite the cruelty of what happened in Port Said, this disaster played a role in uniting the fans of all clubs. It might be a turning point in ending intolerance and hatred in Egyptian football. I will go to the Ahly club along with my teammates to offer our condolences to the families of Port Said martyrs. The fans of Ahly are my brothers,“ he said.

Some of Mr. Abdul Ghani's co-panelists in Doha seemed even more clueless about the roots of Egyptian soccer violence, comparing it to hooliganism in Europe and calling for stricter law enforcement and better education in a country in which law enforcement agencies are at the root of the problem and ultras rather than hooligans are the product of an autocratic system that closed down all release valves for pent-up anger and frustration but the mosque and the soccer pitch.

Port Said as well as last year's repeated vicious street battles between ultras and security forces are the product of years of abuse and violence against soccer fans by the police and the Central Security Force (CSF).

Port Said was also the result of a refusal by the police in the absence of badly needed reforms and re-education to fulfill its duties. Egypt's deteriorating security situation stems in part from the police being largely absent since Mr. Mubarak's downfall.

Widely viewed as the autocratic former president's enforcers and henchmen, the police have avoided confrontation with the public in a bid to improve their tarnished image. In fact, the police's raison d'etre in the last year was public relations not ensuring law and order. Incidents would only highlight the threat of Egypt descending into anarchy and chaos if the police were not accorded the respect needed to uphold law and order.

Egyptian soccer violence “needs to be looked at because there’s a deep-rooted cause there. You have to look at the policing, the infrastructure, the culture - The English FA and Premier League are there to help. We’ve had it, we have had to deal with it and we’ve come out the other side so we are here to help," said former English Football Association chief Mr. Dein.

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.

Alcohol debate shines light on divisions in Qatari society

In the eye of the storm: Hassan Al Thawadi

By James M. Dorsey

Delegates to a high-powered international sports security conference had a glimpse this week of Qatar's internal debate about how far the Gulf state should go in meeting Western and world soccer body FIFA demands that offend conservative segments of Qatari society and the royal family.

With the debate focused on the availability of alcohol during the 2022 World Cup, the first ever to be hosted in the Middle East, delegates watched Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee general secretary Hassan al Thawadi walk a tightrope in a bid to appease all parties.

Mr. Al Thawadi set off alarm bells in his official address to the 2nd International Sport Security Conference when he questioned the need for the serving of alcohol in stadiums. 

Mr. Al Thawadi’s remarks were perhaps mistakenly seen as backtracking on an earlier pledge that alcohol would be relatively freely available during the World Cup.

"I don't see the reason for it being in the stadium. I'm looking at it in terms of England and looking at in terms of everybody else. That is something we are discussing with FIFA ... Let's discuss this with relevant stakeholders and come up with a plan that welcomes everyone,” Mr. Al Thawadi said.

Speaking to journalists later, Mr. Al Thawadi insisted that alcohol would be available during the World Cup. "All I can say is alcohol will be available – maybe not as freely available as some other countries but it will be available. We plans and as we go along more clarity will be provided to people," he said.

Qatar never promised publicly to allow alcohol in stadium but has insisted since winning the right to host the World Cup in December 2010 that it would allow consumption of alcohol in specially designated fan zones.

Mr. Al Thawadi believes that he stands on strong grounds that the alcohol issue is a safety and a security issue rather than a cultural or religious one. FIFA, defending the commercial rights of its sponsors, including Budweiser beer brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev, has locked horns with the non-Muslim hosts of the next two World Cup, Brazil and Russia. Both countries have outlawed the sale of alcohol at sporting events in a bid to control crowds and pre-empt violence.

Qatar’s reluctance to allow alcohol in stadiums is however being increasingly compromised by Brazil and Russia caving into Western and FIFA demands. A Brazilian congressional commission caved in earlier this month and approved a World Cup bill earlier this month that would allow the sale of alcohol in stadiums. The bill still has to be endorsed by the Brazilian parliament’s lower house and senate and then by President Dilma Rousseff.

Russia too appears about to give in. Russian soccer federation president Sergey Fursenko recently called for the reinstitution of beer advertisements in Russian stadiums. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told a soccer fan that “when the decision was made about stadiums, it came from the best of intentions. OK, we’ll return to it again and think about it.”

Nonetheless, Mr. Al Thawadi was hedging his bets because the alcohol issue takes on particular significance in Qatar, the only Muslim state besides Saudi Arabia that adheres to the puritan concepts of Mohammed Abdel Wahhab. An 18th century warrior preacher, Mr. Abdul Wahhab's teachings are among Islam's most conservative. By and large Qatar has nonetheless developed a far more liberal approach than is practiced in Saudi Arabia.

Increasingly, however, conservative Qataris and some members of the royal family are signalling their dissatisfaction with the course Emir Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani supported by his wife, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, is steering. Some of that criticism is believed to be tribally motivated because Sheikha Mozah hails from a tribe that traditionally opposed the Al Thanis.

As a result, the debate about allowing alcohol amounts to far more than a discussion about what concessions Qatar should make to Western soccer executives and FIFA. It is a debate about the future course of the country, the powers of its ruler and its national identity.

The outcome of the debate will not only determine the future of Qatar’s effort to become a global sports hub – a key pillar of the national identity Emir Hamad is seeking to shape – but also its positioning as a forward-looking sponsor of change in a region stretching from the Atlantic coast of Africa to the Gulf that is wracked by anti-government protests and convoluted transitions to more open societies.

Mr. Al-Wahhab’s puritanism constitutes the cradle of Salafism – an Islamic trend that propagates a return to the way of life at the time of Islam’s first 7th century caliphs and has emerged as a power political force in post-revolt Egypt and elsewhere in the region. 

Saudi Arabia recently officially embraced Salafism as a key element in its soft power strategy aimed at countering Iran’s perceived revolutionary Islamic appeal as well as the wave of anti-government protests sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. The embrace also constitutes a response to Qatar’s idiosyncratic foreign and domestic policies, including its support for the Muslim Brotherhood that is widely distrusted by Saudi Arabia.

The latest debate was sparked when a group of rowdy Australians and New Zealanders left a bar on Pearl Qatar Island, home to an estimated 41,000 residents many of whom are expatriates, alcohol bottles in hand and continued drinking in a public space.

Qatar allows drinking only in hotel bars rather than in public spaces. The December incident prompted a ban on drinking in Pearl Island restaurants that have since seen their revenues drop dramatically.

The Pearl Island incident has emboldened Qatari critics of alcohol to argue that the emir’s tolerance violates the country’s constitutions and laws which do not grant him the prerogative to allow its sale or consumption. In doing so, the critics are implicitly sparking a rare debate about the powers of the ruler.

Hassan Al Sayed, a professor of constitutional law and former dean of the College of Law at Qatar University, charged that there is no Qatari law that allows for the sale of alcohol and that in fact several laws, including the constitution, criminalize it. Even “if there is any decision coming for example from the Emir or any department here (legalizing alcohol)… no in fact, this is not okay and this is against the law,” Mr. Al Sayed said.

He said that for Qatar to legally allow the sale and consumption of alcohol it must change its constitution, which in article 1 stipulates that “Islam is the State’s religion and the Islamic Sharia is the main source of its legislations.” Mr. Al Sayed argues that the legal ban applies also to free zones the government said it would create for fans attending the 2022 World Cup.

A majority of Qataris is likely to oppose constitutional reform out of fear that the country would lose its Islamic identity, a key element in the national identity it is trying to shape.

If sports are for Qatar’s leaders a key tool in forging national identity and projecting Qatar internationally, banning alcohol is its equivalent for more conservative and nationalist forces in the Gulf state.

"I don't see a reason to have alcohol. It impacts very negatively on locals. Locals are not happy with it," The Wall Street Journal quoted Qatari writer Abdul Aziz Al Mahmoud as saying.

Conservative Qataris worry that an increasing number of their compatriots, often dressed in full-length robes, the Gulf's national dress, drink publicly in hotels and bars. "It is a taboo in Qatar to see somebody wearing the national dress and drinking," said Hassan Al Ibrahim, a Qatari commentator, according to the Journal.

Conservative fears in a nation where locals account for at best one third of the population were further inflamed when the Qatar Distribution Company, a Qatar Airways owned-retail shop, introduced pork alongside the alcohol it was already selling to expatriates. The introduction was one spark of an online call to boycott the airline. It followed a similar protest in recent months decrying telecommunications services.

"I never thought the day would come that I have to ask the waiter in a restaurant in Qatar what kind of meat is in their burgers," said a Qatari on Twitter.

"Ppl don't get it. Its not about the pork—its about us feeling more & more like a minority—in our own country,” tweeted another Qatari.

The sense of being a minority in one’s own country prompted the Supreme Education Council to recently order all educational institutions to impose Arab as the language of teaching within nine months.

The order came after Qatari crown prince Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani attended a graduation ceremony last fall and noted that the majority of graduates were not Qataris but foreigners. "Where are the Qataris7 Sheikh Tamim asked.

Academics attribute the lack of male Qatari students to the fact that local head hunters hunt Qataris in high school offering them salaries that are the equivalent to what they would earn once they complete a university study. “There is no need for them to study,” a foreign professor said.

Sheikh Tamim is widely viewed as sympathetic to the conservative element of Qatari society. Hotels in Qatar that he owns are among those that do not serve alcohol.

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.

Iranian interference in soccer federation election puts FIFA on the spot

Ali Kafashian: From government supporter to Ahmadinejad challenger

By James M. Dorsey

An effort by the Iranian government to force the resignation of recently re-elected Iranian Football Federation (IFF) president Ali Kafashian constitutes the second time in as many months that a Middle Eastern government defies world soccer body FIFA’s ban on political interference in the beautiful game.

It also spotlights FIFA’s systematic failure to impose governance on its members in the Middle East and North Africa, a part of the world where soccer has over the years become a political battlefield. As a result, governments openly flaunt FIFA’s authority.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a soccer fan who micro manages affairs of the Iranian federation in a failed bid to bolster his popularity, is using the judiciary in a blatant effort to nullify Mr. Kafashian’s re-election.

In a law suit, the attorney general asserted that Mr. Kafashian’s re-election is illegal because he is banned from holding public office as a retired public employee. The attorney general has further threatened to prosecute members of the IFF executive committee who voted in favour of Mr. Kafashian.

The state-owned Fars news agency reported that iran’s recently created sports ministry is pressuring Mr. Kafashian to resign so that it can get a government approved candidate elected.

In a separate report, Fars highlighted the importance of sports to the government in a report about support by prominent sportsmen including former national soccer team players Alireza Mansourian and Hassan Roshan, Teheran’s Esteghlal FC soccer academy chairman Faramarz Khodnegah and national body building federation deputy head Seyed Hassan Afzali for a global march to Jerusalem to demand an end to Israeli occupation.

Ironically, Mr. Kafashian’s retirement was not a legal issue when he was first elected four years ago with Mr. Ahmadinejad’s backing. Nor did FIFA complain about Mr. Ahmadinejad’s political meddling to secure Mr. Kafashian’s 2008 election two years after it had briefly suspended Iran for interference in IFF polling.

Mr. Ahmadinejad turned this year on Mr. Kafashian because the IFF president had failed to ensure that soccer would boost the Iranian leader’s tarnished image. On the contrary, Iranian soccer has gone from bad to worse under Mr. Kafashian’s leadership.

Mr. Kafashian defeat of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s manipulation in early March came in the same week that the Iranian president’s conservative opponents triumphed in parliamentary elections. The legal proceedings highlight the importance Mr. Ahmadinejad attributes to control of the soccer federation, particularly against the backdrop of his parliamentary setback. Mr. Ahmadinejad became this week the first Iranian president since the Islamic revolution 33 years ago to be forced to justify his performance to parliament.

A diplomatic cable from the US embassy in Tehran leaked by Wikileaks asserts that Mr. Amadinejad’s interest in soccer as a political tool has had limited success. The cable reported that he pressured the IFF to lift its 2008 suspension of star Ali Karimi so that he could play in 2010 World Cup qualifiers, engineered the 2009 firing of Ali Daei as coach, and ensured that Mr Daei’s successor Mohamed Mayeli-Kohan lasted all of two weeks in the job so that his preferred candidate could be appointed.

Mr. Ahmedinejad has justified his interference telling Iranian journalists that “unfortunately, this sport has been afflicted with some very bad issues. I must intervene personally to push aside these destructive issues.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s blatant meddling in this month’s IFF election constitutes the second time in as many months that a Middle Eastern government openly flaunts FIFA rules to benefit politically from the beautiful game. It highlights FIFA’s increasing lack of credibility in the region.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter last month unsuccessfully demanded that the board of the Egyptian Football Association (EFA), appointees of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, be reinstated after it was summarily dismissed by the government in the wake of the death of 74 militant soccer fans in the Suez Canal town of Port Said in the worst sporting violence in Egyptian history.

The government ignored Mr. Blatter’s demand and outmanoeuvred the FIFA president by ensuing that the board after its official dismissal announced its resignation without acknowledging that it was at the behest of the government. 

Mr. Blatter’s failed effort put the world soccer body at odds with Egyptian fans and clubs who had been campaigning for the last year for the resignation of the EFA board. It also contrasted starkly with FIFA’s failure for years to protest against the Mubarak regime’s political interference.

FIFA has been similarly lax in imposing adherence to FIFA criteria in the Egyptian premier league, a majority of whose members would be disqualified if the soccer body’s rules were applied. The same is true for the top Iranian league.

The comparison between Egypt and Iran doesn’t stop there nor does the risk of FIFA finding itself on the wrong side of history.

One reason Mr. Ahamdinejad turned against Mr. Kafashian is the fact that the soccer pitch on Mr. Kafashian’s watch has repeatedly in Tehran and Tabriz, the capital of East Azerbaijan, turned into a venue for protest against the Iranian president’s government. The soccer pitch was an important incubator of the revolt that toppled Mr. Mubarak.

The IFF president is also the fall guy for the failure of successive national coaches to deliver performance even though Mr. Ahmadinejad took a direct interest in their appointment. The coaches failed to take Iran to World Cup finals or triumph in Asian Cups, dashing Mr. Ahmadinejad’s hopes that the national team’s resulting prestige would rub off on him. Iran still stands a chance for qualifying for the 2014 Brazil World Cup.

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.

Rival Egyptian ultras warn Egypt’s military rulers in rare show of unity

Al Ahly ultras demand justice for Port Said (Source: Al Ahram)

By James M. Dorsey

In a show of unity in the wake of last month’s death of 74 soccer fans in a lethal brawl in Port Said, militant support groups of crowned Cairo arch rivals Al Ahly SC and Al Zamalek SC have warned Egypt’s military rulers that they would sacrifice their lives to ensure that the instigators of the worst incident in Egyptian sporting history are swiftly brought to justice. They also warned that they would resist a crackdown on militant soccer groups.

Coming from Zamalek’s Ultras White Knights (UWK) and Ultras Ahlawy – militant, well-organized, highly politicized, street battled-hardened soccer fan groups modelled on similar organizations in Serbia and Italy – who played a key role in last year’s overthrow of president Hosni Mubarak these are not empty threats.

The statement at the end of a historic meeting between the two groups who have bitterly fought each other since their inception in 2007 suggests a sea change in Egypt’s soccer politics.

The arch rivals, whose differences are rooted in the contentious politics of British-ruled 

Egypt that led to their clubs’ founding more than a century ago, temporarily set their differences aside early last year to jointly confront security forces and Mubarak loyalists on Cairo’s Tahrir Square. They have since the toppling of the president stood should-to-shoulder in vicious street battles with law enforcement forces associated with the interior ministry in a bid to force the military to hand over power to a civilian government and return to its barracks.

The ultras accuse the government and security forces of having at the least enabled if not encouraging  last month’s clash in the Port Said stadium after a match between the Suez Canal town’s Al Masri SC and Al Ahly to punish the Cairo ultras for emerging as the most militant opponents to military rule.

Zamalek last month released an album of songs dedicated to those that had died in the overthrow of Mr. Mubarak and were killed in the battles since then.

The Sun of Freedom

Preliminary results of a parliamentary investigation of the Port Said incident blamed fans and lax security for the incident and suggested that unidentified thugs had been involved in the violence, fueling reports that the violence had been planned rather than spontaneous.

"We demand full transparency in revealing the outcome of the investigations. We will neither accept disregarding the disaster and turning it into football riots nor making a scapegoat to protect those who orchestrated the attacks," the ultras said in their joint statement released after their first ever public gathering.

The ultras warned further that they would reject “wrongful accusations against anyone because he just belongs to the Ultras groups” as well as efforts to suppress their groups. They also cautioned that they would “not allow any football activities to resume unless complete justice is done."

Respected for their fearlessness and their years of standing up to the security forces, the ultras said they were” ready to sacrifice our lives for the sake of our country."

State-owned Al Ahram newspaper last month described the ultras as “a time bomb ticking due to lack of justice for fallen comrades following the Port Said disaster.”

Al Ahly (The National), like Zamalek one of Africa’s most crowned clubs traces its roots to opposition to the government to when it was founded more than a century ago as a meeting place of opponents of the British colonial administration and the monarchy. Its players still wear the red colors of the pre-colonial Egyptian flag.

Dressed in white, Zamalek, which first was named Al Mohtalet or The Mix and then Farouk in honor of the than hated and later deposed Egyptian monarch, was established as the club of the British colonial administrators, their Egyptian allies and the monarchists. 

Those differences have long faded with the overthrow of the monarchy 60 years ago and no longer reflect the demography of the two clubs’ fan base. The rivalry nonetheless persisted with Cairo residents defining themselves until the toppling of Mr. Mubarak as either Zamalek or Ahlawy.

The ultras issued their statement as the Egyptian Football Association (EFA), acting on instructions of the interior ministry, cancelled mid-season this season's league in the wake of Port Said. The cancellation was apparently designed to further isolate the militants and signalled the military’s refusal to hold the police and security forces to their responsibility to maintain law and order. . It came as registration started for candidates for Egypt’s first post-Mubarak presidential election in May.

The EFA said on Tuesday that it had yet to decide whether to go ahead with a plan to hold a tournament of friendlies behind closed doors later this month in commemoration of those who lost their lives in Port Said.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

EFA cancels Egyptian league for security and political reasons

Ahly fans seek to escape violence in Port Said (Source: Reuters)

By James M. Dorsey

The Egyptian Football Association (EFA), acting on instructions of the interior ministry, has cancelled the rest of this season's league matches in the wake of rioting at a match last month that killed 74 people and injured hundreds of others in a move that is apparently designed to further isolate militant soccer fans and fails to hold the police and security forces to their responsibility to maintain law and order.

The league has been suspended since February 1, the day that 74 people, mostly militant soccer fans of crowned Cairo club Al Ahly SC, were killed in Port Said immediately after a clash with supporters of the Suez Canal town’s Al Masri SC in the worst incident in Egypt’s sporting history, the most lethal since last year’s overthrow of president Hosni Mubarak, and the deadliest soccer incident worldwide since 1996.

Many believe that the incident in which security forces failed to intervene was an attempt to punish the Ahly fans and send a message to other groups of ultras – well-organized, highly politicized, street battle-hardened soccer fan groups modeled on similar organizations in Serbia and Italy – for their key role in last year’s toppling of Mr. Mubarak and opposition since to Egypt’s military rulers. It came as registration started for candidates for Egypt’s first post-Mubarak presidential election in May.

EFA spokesman Azmy Megahed said the season would not resume because there was not enough time to play the league games before the national team begins training for the 2013 African Cup qualifiers and this year's London Olympics.

Mr. Megahed said that 18 teams, divided into two groups, would compete in a friendly Martyrs Cup tournament in empty stadiums later this month intended to raise money for families of those killed in the Port Said violence and to appease sponsors. He said Al Masri would not be participating in the cup.

“This tournament is aimed at lessening the effects of the league’s cancellation on the clubs and sponsors. Some clubs initially objected to the proposal to cancel the league but they eventually accepted it after the interior ministry said it would not secure the matches,” Mr. Megahed told Al Ahram newspaper.

The EFA, whose board was dismissed after the Port Said incident, is expected to announce within days how it will penalize Al Masri for the violence. Prominent soccer figures have called for the relegation of the team to a lower division.

The decision ends weeks of debate on whether the league should be resumed. Various clubs as well as media organizations campaigned for resumption of the league because they feared the financial consequences of a suspension. Egyptian soccer clubs have suffered significant financial losses as a result of last year’s suspension for three months in the walk-up and aftermath of Mr. Mubarak’s overthrow and repeated orders to play matches behind closed doors as a result of clashes between the ultras and security forces.

Al Ahly, one of Africa’s most crowned clubs which traces its roots to opposition to the government to when it was founded more than a century ago as a meeting place of opponents of the British colonial administration and the monarchy, favored cancellation of the league. A number of Al-Ahly players, including Mohamed Abou Treika, Mohamed Barakat, Ahmed Fathi and Emad Mete'b, said they would not play matches because of low morale and because no one had yet been brought to justice for the bloodshed in Port Said.

Egypt's lawmakers are investigating who was behind the deadly violence. Preliminary results blamed fans and lax security for the incident and suggested that unidentified thugs had been involved in the violence, fueling reports that the violence had been planned rather than spontaneous.

Senior interior ministry officials said last week that those suspected of responsibility for the Port Said violence, including security officials, would be formally charged within days. Authorities have so far detained 54 people on suspicion of complicity.

The EFA decision may have been the soccer body’s only option but raises significant 

questions. It highlights the deteriorating security in the Arab world's most populous country as instability continues nearly a year after Mr. Mubarak was swept out of power in a popular uprising.

The lack of security is fueled by the reluctance of the police and security forces to enforce law and order in a bid to change the image of law enforcement agencies, which are widely perceived as henchmen of the Mubarak regime. As a result, the police over the past year have been more interested in avoiding clashes with groups that played key roles in the overthrow of the president, including the incident in Port Said, than in carrying out their duties in the belief that this would help them reposition themselves and that insecurity would emphasize the need for a police force to prevent the country from drifting into chaos and anarchy.

The league suspension spotlights the military rulers’ failure to reform the police and security forces and ensure that they carry out their responsibility to ensure law and order. Some in Egypt believe that the suspension in a soccer-crazy country is also designed to further isolate the ultras and youth groups that were at the core of the popular uprising that toppled Mr. Mubarak. The groups have lost popularity in recent months in a country that has become protest weary and yearns for a return to normalcy and economic growth. Anti-government protests and violent clashes with security forces stand in the way of focusing on the economy.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

Ahmadinejad loses not one but two elections with re-election of Iranian soccer boss

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad struggles in parliament and on the soccer pitch

By James M. Dorsey

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s waning political fortunes suffered a double blow this week: the conservative victory in parliamentary elections and the re-election of Iranian Football Federation (IFF) president Ali Kafashian in defiance of the Iranian leader’s efforts to ensure his defeat.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s candidate in IFF elections when he first ran for president four years ago, Mr. Kafashian’s performance has done little to ensure that Iranian soccer helped the hands-on, soccer playing Iranian leader polish his tarnished image. On the contrary. Iranian soccer has been going from bad to worse under Mr. Kafashian’s leadership.

The soccer pitch on Mr. Kafashian’s watch has repeatedly in Tehran and Tabriz, the capital of East Azerbaijan, turned into a venue for protest against Mr. Ahmadinejad’s government. The IFF president is also the fall guy for the failure of successive national coaches to deliver performance even though Mr. Ahmadinejad takes a direct interest in their appointment.

The coaches failed to take Iran to World Cup finals or triumph in Asian Cups, dashing Mr. Ahmadinejad’s hopes that the national team’s resulting prestige would rub off on him. Iran still stands a chance for qualifying for the 2014 Brazil World Cup.

Nonetheless, Iran’s Olympic women’s team was disqualified last year for wearing a hijab, a headdress favoured by observant Muslim women players, in violation of world soccer body FIFA rules.  Adding insult to injury, Mr. Kafashian last year withdrew his candidacy for a seat on the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) executive committee..

As a result, Mr. Kafashian’s re-election campaign faced opposition from two candidates: one backed by the government, the other by the Revolutionary Guards, which has been taking in recent years an ever greater interest in Iranian soccer.

Ironically, the fact that Mr. Kafashian decided to stand as a candidate despite the loss of support of his former sponsors and his willingness to challenge the government publicly may have worked in his favour. In statements to the media, Mr. Kafashian made no bones of the fact that the government was interfering in the IFF election to engineer his defeat. Iran was briefly suspended by FIFA in 2006 for interfering in the federation’s elections.

Mr. Kafashian drove his newly found assertiveness home by vowing in his campaign to improve the financial and commercial position of clubs and ensure that the federation would enjoy greater independence in his second term. That is a tall order in a country in which the majority of clubs are owned by government-related entities, people close to the Revolutionary Guards have been joining boards and in which the president sees the federation as one of his soft power tools.

It would also mean ensuring that clubs meet FIFA criteria for membership in a premier league, which include financial independence, ownership of a stadium and the fact that its owners have only one club in the league – all conditions that would significantly reduce the government’s influence on soccer.

Last weekend’s decision by the International Football Association Board (IFAB), which determines the rules of the game, to test a new headdress for women that complies with player’s cultural demand as well as safety and security standards poses a challenge for Mr. Kafashian. While it ensures that Iran will no longer be disbarred as long as it adheres to the new headdress rather than the hijab, Mr. Kafashian will still have to manage the issue that wearing the headdress is mandatory rather than voluntary not only for Iranian players but also for visiting foreign women’s teams.

All of this is hardly good news for Mr. Ahmadinejad, who according to a 2009 US diplomatic cable disclosed by WikiLeaks concluded that the president’s efforts to make soccer work to his political advantage had achieved only limited success.

The Iranian president went as far as in 2006 lifting the ban on women watching soccer matches in Iranian stadia, but in a rare public disagreement was overruled by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Documenting Mr. Ahmadinejad’s active interest in soccer, the US cable reported that he pressured the Iranian football federation to lift its 2008 suspension of star Ali Karimi so that he could play in 2010 World Cup qualifiers, engineered the 2009 firing of Ali Daei as coach, ensured that Mr Daei’s successor Mohamed Mayeli-Kohan lasted all of two weeks in the job so that his candidate would be appointed.

Mr. Ahmedinejad has justified his interference telling Iranian journalists that “unfortunately, this sport has been afflicted with some very bad issues. I must intervene personally to push aside these destructive issues.”

Like in other Middle Eastern nations, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s efforts to politically manipulate the beautiful game turned the soccer pitch into a platform for dissent for which the president wanted him to take the blame in this year’s IFF election.

The Iranian federation postponed league matches in Tehran in February of last year in a bid to prevent celebrations of the 32nd anniversary of the Islamic revolution from turning into anti-government protests inspired by the toppling of the Egyptian and Tunisian presidents by mass anti-government protests.

The funeral in May of last year of famous Iranian soccer player Nasser Hejazi, an internationally acclaimed defender and outspoken critic of the president in Tehran’s Azadi stadium turned into a mass protest against the government of Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Mourners chanted “Hejazi, you spoke in the name of the people” in a reference to Mr. Hejazi’s criticism of the Iranian president’s economic policies. Mr. Hejazi took Mr. Ahmadinejad in April publicly to task for Iran’s gaping income difference and budgetary measure, which hit the poorest the hardest.

Mourners in the Behsht Zahra cemetery where Mr. Hejazi was buried shouted “Mubarak, Bin Ali, now it’s your turn Khamenei!” in reference to ousted Egyptian and Tunisian presidents Hosni Mubarak and Zine Abedine Ben Ali and Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Mr. Hejazi tried to run for president as an independent candidate in Iran’s 2005 elections, but was forced by authorities to withdraw.

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.

Soccer in Guantanamo – a duel between Republicans and Democrats

Guantanamo's $750,000 soccer pitch

By James M. Dorsey

A row in the US Congress over Pentagon spending on a soccer pitch for suspected terrorists incarcerated in Guantanamo focuses attention on the importance of the beautiful game to both the militants and their counter-terrorist detractors.

The $744,000 pitch outside a $39 million penitentiary-style building known as Camp 6 at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is intended to  reward the most cooperative of the facility’s 120 171 inmates. It builds on US efforts to employ soccer over the past decade as evidence that it complies with the Geneva Conventions and to reduce tensions between the militants and their wardens.

The pitch, set to be inaugurated next month once contractors have installed latrines and goals, is surrounded by guard towers and surveillance cameras and accessible by a secure walkway to reduce contact and conflict between the inmates and their captors.

It is also yet another example of the US government’s use of soccer in its battle for the hearts and minds of militants and their potential supporters. If soccer was a bonding and recruitment tool for jihadists across the globe, it could well serve to reinforce rehabilitation.

That is a notion that doesn’t go down well in an election year and at a time of economic crisis with President Barak Obama’s Republican opponents in the US Congress.

"Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars for crying out loud? Our deficit this year is $1.2 trillion and we're spending this kind of money on terrorists?" asked Florida Republican member of the House of Representatives Gus Bilirakas in a television interview.

Dennis Ross, another Florida Republican went a step further. He introduced in Congress what he dubbed the ‘NO FIELD Act’ or None of Our Funds for the Interest, Exercise, or Leisure of Detainees Act, which would reduce the Defence Department's 2013 budget by $750,000 – the soccer pitch’s price tag.

Guantanamo "should not be a place of comfort. It should house the worst of the worst of the world's terrorists, not be a training ground for the World Cup,” McClatchy Newspapers quoted Mr. Ross as saying.

“Though it’s a tough choice to say who deserves more blame for such apparent waste, fraud and abuse, the genius who thought up the soccer field in the first place, or the contractor fleecing Uncle Sam for a small dirt field surrounded by a green fence, one thing is certain – this episode shows President Obama’s priorities in action,” said retired Navy Commander and former Pentagon spokesman J. D. Gordon who served as an advisor to Herman Cain’s failed 2012 Republican presidential campaign in an op-ed on Fox News.

Guantanamo commander Rear Admiral David B. Woods told McClatchy that construction costs were high because all equipment and supplies had to be imported to the 116-square-kilometer base in southeast Cuba.

"That's probably the biggest misperception and lack of understanding of the expense of doing things down here. It's unlike any place else in the world mainly because we don't have the opportunity to capitalize on the local economy,” Admiral Woods said.

Over the past decade, soccer has constituted part of the United States’ soft power tools in seeking to win hearts and minds. The US administration in Iraq in the wake of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein made the construction and rehabilitation of soccer stadiums and clubs a priority in a bid to counter efforts by militants to make inroads among the country’s youth.

US military and civilian officials argued that reopening soccer stadiums and encouraging people to play free of fear or persecution would win hearts and minds among those scarred by regimes for which soccer was either the enemy or a weapon of terror.

Members of the US 87th Infantry's 1st battalion were thrashed 9:0 a few years ago when they played the Sons of Iraq, a team made up of former insurgents, on a makeshift pitch on a dirt field in northern Iraq. As far as the Americans were concerned, their thrashing contained an important message: soccer balls can be more powerful than bombs. "You lose a game, but you win a lot of friends," said Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, the then commander of the 1st Armored Division and Multi-National Division North.

Before US-led coalition troops entered Baghdad in 2003, Saddam Hussein's men went into the neighbourhoods and passed out guns and stored weapons in schools. Because it was too dangerous to drive the trailers away through the streets, American forces blew them up - and in the process, damaged schools and surrounding homes. Though the US military returned to clear away the debris, distribute soccer balls and help set up teams and leagues in tense towns like Ramadi and Sadr City, unexploded shells remain in fields and school-yards where children kick their balls.

With an estimated 42 million land mines or two landmines per person in Iraq in a nation of 24 million, US Provisional Reconstruction Teams partnered with Spirit of Soccer, a Johnstown, Pennsylvania NGO that employs soccer to educate youth about the risk of mines. Trained by Spirit of Soccer, Iraqi coaches, including women, discussed fair play, avoiding dangers from land mines and other unexploded munitions, sportsmanship, tolerance and the need for non-violent conflict resolution while dribbling and kicking penalties. Participants returned to their communities as coaches and organizers of Youth Soccer and Mine Awareness Festivals.

In Afghanistan, US-led international forces played shortly after their 2001 overthrow of the Taliban soccer against an Afghan team in Kabul’s Ghazi Stadium to highlight the change they were bringing to the war-ravaged country. The stadium had been used by the Taliban for public executions, stonings and amputations. Americans and Iranians competed in Iran in the reconstruction of soccer pitches as a way of earning brownie points.

Soccer may seem an odd foreign policy tool or military priority. But with at least half the population of Iraq and Afghanistan under the age of 18, soccer balls and shoes are as basic to mending the two countries’ social fabric as beams and girders are to mending the damaged buildings. Indeed, the future of Iraq as well as Afghanistan and US relations with both countries may well in part depend on soccer paraphernalia and US efforts to prevent political interference and sectarian strife from undermining the two nations’ soccer performance.

Clearly, it will take more than a soccer training, a soccer league and a successful national team to overcome Iraq' and Afghanistan’s ethnic, religious and social divisions. Yet sociologists suggest that soccer can play a role in strengthening feelings of unity and national identity. Sports can also have a cathartic effect by channelling human aggression away from violence and into more healthy channels. Nelson Mandela used a racially integrated national rugby team to unite South Africa in the wake of apartheid -- a story now made famous by the movie Invictus. South Africa went on to become the first African nation to successfully host the World Cup.

These are lessons that may be lost on the Republicans but they are certainly not lost on militants. The most radical militants including Al Qaeda’s Somalia affiliate as well as some 

Saudi and Egyptian Salafi sheikhs denounce soccer as the infidel’s game because it was introduced by British colonialists and because of its potential to compete with Islam, particularly as a release valve in autocratic environments. Saudi Arabia recognized soccer’s competitive power during the 2010 World Cup when it, afraid that believers would forget their daily prayers during matches broadcast live on Saudi TV, rolled out mobile mosques on trucks and prayer mats in front of popular cafes where men gathered to watch the games.

More mainstream militants like the late Osama Bin Laden, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah are fervent soccer fans who use the game as a bonding and recruitment tool. Soccer brought recruits into the fold, encouraged camaraderie and reinforced militancy among those who had already joined. The track record of soccer-players-turned suicide bombers proved their point.

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.

Muslim players win hijab battle in their struggle for women’s rights

Saudi women train on a private pitch

By James M. Dorsey

Observant Muslim women soccer players won a first victory on Saturday with the endorsement by the International Football Association Board’s (IFAB) decision to allow the players to test specially designed headscarves for the next four months.

The proposal presented to the IFAB, the soccer body that determines the game’s rules, was tabled by world soccer body FIFA vice president Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, a proponent of women’s rights.

Prince Ali’s campaign to lift the ban on Muslim women wearing a headdress in competition matches garnered over the past year widespread support from among others the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), the United Nations and the International Federation of Professional Footballers as well as members of the FIFA executive committee.

Prince Ali launched his campaign after Iran was disqualified for this year’s London Olympics because it appeared last year on the pitch in Amman for a qualifier against Jordan with its players wearing the hijab, the headdress that covers a woman’s hair, ears and neck. Three Jordanian hijab-wearing players were also barred.

IFAB, a grouping whose membership – FIFA, England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland – harks back to British colonialism’s globalization of the beautiful game, will review its decision in early July based on the experience of the coming four months.

"I am deeply grateful that the proposal to allow women to wear the headscarf was unanimously endorsed by all members of IFAB. I welcome their decision for an accelerated process to further test the current design and I'm confident that once the final ratification at the special meeting of IFAB takes place, we will see many delighted and happy players returning to the field and playing the game they love, ," Prince Ali said.

While the IFAB decision constitutes an important tangible as well as psychological victory for Muslim women athletes, it by no way resolves all of their problems, many of which have less to do with religion and more to do with inbred traditions of patriarchic societies as well as non-Muslim prejudices.

“Female athletes in the Middle East face pressures that include family, religion, politics, and culture. These issues often take place over use or nonuse of the hijab, the traditional head covering for Muslim women,” concluded 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.

The study based on interviews with female athletes and their coaches found that sports often empowered young women whose role models are successful sportswomen like Fatima Al-Nabhani, an Omani tennis player, and Bahraini sprinter Roqaya Al-Ghasara, who was fully covered when she ran and won at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. “Both women not only serve as role models for aspiring female athletes from the region, but also shatter Western stereotypes,” the report said. Eight other female athletes competed in Beijing wearing the hijab in sprinting, rowing, taekwondo and archery.

In a statement French women's groups - the International League for Women's Rights, the French Coordination for the European Women's Lobby and Femix'Sports --  charged that IFAB with its decision was "acceding to the demand of the Iranian Federation football, raises the gravest questions on the interference of politics in sports, as well as on the issue of transparency in decision-making both by leading football bodies and by the United Nations."

Resistance to women playing soccer with or without their head covered is 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.

In a break with tradition, Kuwait this weekend hosted the first Gulf university soccer tournament for females at its Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST) in which Saudi Arabia fielded its first ever women’s soccer team in an international competition.

"Out of commitment to its social role, besides the academic one, GUST seeks to promote female sports in Kuwait and in the Arabian Gulf region through organizing and patronizing such competitions," GUST Chancellor Afaf Al-Rakhis said. She described women's sports as a reflection of the social and cultural advancement of a country.

That’s a strong statement given resistance in Kuwait to women’s soccer and the fact that Saudi Arabia bans women’s sports and only tacitly allows women’s teams to be formed in private settings.

Kuwaiti Islamists denounced GUST’s plans for the tournament when they were first announced last year and urged the government the competition. “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.

Mr. Tabtabai was one of a number of deputies who 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 at the time.

Saudi-owned Al Arabiya satellite tv quoting Reuters reported that the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority had earlier this year announced plans to introduce after-hours physical education classes for both girls and boys. Public schools in the kingdom do not offer girls physical education. It was not clear why the investment authority rather than the Saudi authority responsible for youth and sports would be spearheading an initiative to facilitate women’s sports.

Al Arabiya conceded that professional women athletes in the kingdom “are publicly slammed for going against their natural role” and reported that Saudi newspapers refer to them as “shameless” because they cause embarrassment to their families. Women athletes often receive text messages urging them to stay home and tend to their household duties as mothers and wives, Al Arabiya said.

“If there is no support from the family we cannot get into these types of activities ... some people are extremist or extra conservative,” it quoted 17-year old basketball player Hadeer Sadagah as saying.

International human rights group Human Rights Watch last month 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 Human Rights Watch 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 borrows its name from a religious edict by Sheikh Abdulkareem al-Khudair, a member of the kingdom’s Supreme Council for Religious Scholars, banning sports for women because they “will lead to following in the footsteps of the devil.” Sheikh Al-Khudair said the government could not introduce sports in schools for girls because such activity is forbidden in Islam.

Saudi women, including some members of the royal family, nonetheless are pushing the envelope. A group of women is planning a hiking expedition to Everest base camp this summer as part of a charity fundraising exercise to promote a healthy lifestyle for breast cancer patients.

“As a nation we need to focus on preventative measures that include healthy lifestyle, specifically nutrition and fitness and early detection (of women's illnesses). The inspiration to climb Everest base camp came from the basic idea that a healthy lifestyle and healthy body can fight illness better,” Al Arabiya quoted Princess Reema al-Saud, who is leading the Everest climb 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.

Bahrain’s 10:0 against Indonesia puts both nations in the political hot seat

A suspicious outcome with political implications (Source: The Daily Telegraph)

By James M. Dorsey

Bahrain’s stunning 10:0 thrashing this week of Indonesia in a World Cup qualifier threatens to damage the campaign of the country’s football czar, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, to be elected head of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and has put the careers of prominent soccer managers and executives in the firing line as world soccer body FIFA investigates possible match fixing.

The investigation kick starts former German police chief and Interpol director Ralf Mutschke’s new job as FIFA security chief, which includes the fight against corruption and match-fixing.

FIFA described the Bahraini victory which failed to ensure that the Gulf state advances to the fourth and final Asian qualifying round for the 2014 World Cup as “unusual.”

In addition to having to make up for a nine-goal deficit, which it did with its defeat of Indonesia, Bahrain also needed Qatar to lose its last match. But by scoring an 83rd-minute equalizer to draw 2-2 with Iran, Qatar ensured that it rather than Bahrain would advance to the final round.

All in all, Indonesia has lost all five of its previous group matches, conceding 16 goals while scoring just three.

FIFA, in a bid to appear impartial and not further tarnish Bahrain Football Association (BFA) president Sheikh Salman’s election campaign, described its investigation as “routine,” adding that the probe was justified "given the unusual outcome against results expectation and head-to-head history, and in the interests of maintaining unequivocal confidence in our game."

The allegation of match-fixing adds another layer of controversy to Sheikh Salman’s campaign given his backing last year of the arrest, torture and/or firing of 150 athletes and sports officials, including several national soccer team players on charges of involvement in anti-government protests.

Speaking in London, FIFA vice president Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein said the outcome of the Bahrain-Indonesia match “might just be a coincidence, however there might be something behind it." Prince Ali, a proponent for greater transparency within FIFA, noted that match fixers were often “a step ahead” of those seeking to safeguard the integrity of the beautiful game. "We will have to see what the investigation comes out with,” he said.

The AFC said in a statement that it supported the FIFA probe and would "cooperate closely with the world football governing body in the investigation."

Bahrain’s English coach Peter Taylor is likely to move into the fire line if it emerges that the match against Indonesia was fixed. Mr. Taylor was criticized last year for taking up the job in a country where several national team players were banned and mistreated as part of the 150 sports people penalized for demonstrating against the government. Mr. Taylor somewhat callously at the time justified accepting the job by saying: "I am just a football manager. Since I've been here there have been more problems in England than there have been in Bahrain."

Bahrain has historically had close games with Indonesia, having won two, drawn two and lost two prior to Wednesday's game. Bahrain had scored nine goals in those matches and conceded seven.

Indonesia was disadvantaged during the match after its goalkeeper, Samsidar with a red card just two minutes into the game and because it was fielding several inexperienced international players after suspending others who play for clubs in the breakaway Indonesian Super League.

As a result, it is hardly surprising that the probe shines the spotlight on the Indonesian football association (PSSI), which like Indonesia itself has been wracked by corruption. PSSI chairman Djohar Arifin Husin added fuel to the fire when he was quoted by Indonesian news website Inilah.com on his way back to Jakarta from Bahrain as charging that the national team could “no longer depend on the senior players. They are all mafia who have been contaminated with the way previous PSSI officials ran football, fixing matches as they see fit.”

Amid denunciations by former players, Mr. Husin has since denied making the remark and accused Inilah.com of defaming him.

Mr. Husin nonetheless appeared to leave the door open to possible foul play charging that controversial Lebanese referee Andre El Haddad had made “lots of questionable calls…., so that should be investigated.”

Mr. El Haddad last year took charge of a qualifier between China and Singapore that saw him make several hotly contested decisions. China won 2-1.

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 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.