Seriously? quote of the day

From a public statement by the Fairfield County (OH) School District, announcing it would allow a 12-year-old girl to play football rather than defend its ban (which it never explained) in litigation that the ACLU threatened to bring on the girl's behalf:

"We have no intent of competing with the deep pockets of the ACLU in any litigation situation in order to secure a favorable judgment," the district said in a statement. "Therefore, we will allow female participation in contact sports."

Really? The ACLU has deep pockets? The ACLU's pockets for litigation are lined with the money it recovers from idiotic governments--like Franklin County--when it successfully challenges pointless-but-unconstitutional like this one. Still, it's a nice piece of demagoguery that might play well with the public. I do agree with one commentator, who noted that such a statement indicates the district still does not support the girl's efforts, is not convinced she is legally entitled to play, and potentially not willing to give her the backing she needs (that is, the same backing as all other players get). We may not be done with this story.

Leigh Steinberg's Sports Law Class at Chapman Law

Leigh Steinberg writes on his new Sports Law class at Chapman Law in Forbes.  From his description, the class

… will be extremely interactive and emphasize real life skills.…They will learn how to negotiate by playing a general manager or player agent in a NFL first round contract signing. They will master win-win negotiating which meets both parties needs….They will experience “damage control”, having to defend an athlete gone wrong in front of a room of student reporters. They will learn how a player needs to accept responsibility and engage in prevention of a recurrence. ….Of course we will cover standard player contracts and collective bargaining agreements.

I love the sound of the class, with a great list of guest speakers.  The headline describes this as a "novel" approach to Sports Law -- I don't think that's the case, although I would attribute that exaggeration to a headline-writing editor rather than the author.  Sports Law classes have often been taught as "simulation" courses since they first entered law school curricula.  Phil Closius taught one here at Toledo well over a decade ago which featured contract-negotiation exercises.  UCLA has a sports law simulation housed in its clinical program.  What might be different and new about Steinberg's class is the introduction of guests into the simulation activities - which gets the class closer to feeling like a live-client clinic.

Turmoil in Egypt: Learning lessons from the Philippines

By James M. Dorsey

With Egypt deeply polarized politically and religiously, kick-starting a political process capable of bridging divides and creating an inclusive democratic process seems a distant prospect. It will ultimately depend on the likely shrinking over time of the military's popular base and the government's realization that it needs the United States and the European Union to tackle the country's vast economic problems.

Amid entrenched political battle lines that have been reinforced by a brutal security force crackdown on supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi, Egyptians would do well to look at past events in the Philippines as well as the last 2.5 years of their own history. Military support for a popular uprising forced elected Philippine President Joseph Estrada out of office twelve years ago. Nine subsequent years of corrupt government by Mr. Estrada's successor, Gloria Arroyo, have since persuaded many to rethink their original backing for the undemocratic way the president was ousted.

Egypt has a long way to go before liberals and revolutionaries realize that they made a pact with the devil by joining forces with the military, the security forces and supporters of ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak to topple Morsi, the country's first democratically-elected president. The resignation of Mohammed el Baradei and charging of the liberal former international civil servant and Nobel Prize winner as vice-president in Egypt's military-appointed government in protest against the bloody break-up of Muslim Brotherhood's protests constitutes the first crack in popular support for the coup against Morsi. It is an initial, very tentative step down the Philippines' trodden path. Mr. El Baradei complained in his resignation letter that "the beneficiaries of what happened today (the break-up of the Brotherhood protests) are those who call for violence, terrorism and the most extreme groups".

It took many Filipinos years to privately realize that the unconstitutional ousting of a democratically elected president had not solved their problems; the odds are it will take Egyptians a significant amount of time to follow suit. Six weeks of political strife with opposing political forces in Cairo protesting on highly symbolized rival squares have entrenched deep-seated distrust between multiple groups in society and institutions. It has pitted the left, the secularists and the Christian Copts against Islamists and rural Sunni Muslim Egypt, and significant portions of the population that are likely to increase in numbers against the military as well as the security forces.

The political fault lines have for now allowed the military, the security forces and the Mubarak leftovers to exploit popular support to return Egypt in many ways to the era of Mr. Mubarak, who was toppled in 2011 by an alliance of leftists, secularists and Islamists. The interests of the alliance coincided with those of the military that was keen on preventing Mr. Mubarak from installing his son Gamal, who was surrounded by businessmen who posed a threat to the economic and commercial interests of the armed forces, as his successor. That alliance produced 17 months of failed military rule followed by the rise of Mr. Morsi, whose one-year tenure was marked by incompetence, economic failure, arrogance and autocratic and majoritarian tendencies.

The military this time round successfully exploited popular anti-Brotherhood sentiment to achieve public acceptance of repressive policies, the revival of the coercive state and a prevalence for security rather than political solutions for political problems. It did so through a combination of demonization of the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization reinforced by a campaign in dominant media that were either state-owned or co-opted.

To be sure, the military despite its hard handedness and single-minded determination to secure its perks, privileges and role as the ultimate political arbiter has consistently enjoyed the confidence of a majority of Egyptians for years. Nevertheless, its agenda in recent months has been to cut the Brotherhood down to size, if not destroy it, at the risk of ever deeper polarization of Egyptian society and civil disobedience or political violence that would be brutally suppressed. The declaration of emergency law and a curfew in 14 Egyptian provinces has further set the stage. The security forces, eager to take revenge for their humiliation in the post-Mubarak era when they emerged as Egypt’s most despised institution, have proven that they are happy to oblige.

The military and the government, its civilian façade, went out of its way since Mr. Morsi’s ouster to ensure that the Brotherhood would not engage in any political process despite its insistence that there was a place at the table for the group. The Brotherhood had little reason to take the military by its word with many of its leaders, including its spiritual guide and Mr. Morsi, in prison awaiting trial; others being sought by security forces; its media outlets shut down; a campaign in state-run media as well as media associated with the anti-Morsi campaign designed to demonize the Brotherhood; the targeting of Brotherhood-related businesses; and finally the deaths of hundreds in the break-up of pro-Morsi protests.

Efforts by the United States, the European Union and Gulf states were thwarted when the military in contrast to the Brotherhood rejected a compromise formula that would have allowed both parties to save face and would have averted this week’s bloodshed. "We had a political plan that was on the table that had been accepted by the other side (the Muslim Brotherhood). They could have taken this option. So all that has happened today was unnecessary," Reuters news agency quoted said EU envoy Bernardino Leon, who co-led the mediation effort with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns. The compromise would have involved the release of imprisoned Muslim Brothers, an honorable exit from the presidency for Mr. Morsi, an amended constitution and new elections. The failed mediation effort served the military as a fig leaf that allowed it to suggest that it had attempted to secure a political solution before it cracked down.

The turmoil in recent weeks in Egypt has proven that Egypt’s Western allies and even the United Arab Emirates, a staunchly anti-Morsi Gulf state that has funded the post-Morsi government and worked with the US and the EU to find a political solution, have at this point, at best, limited leverage. That is likely to change once the military and its government recognizes that they need the support of the international community to secure a crucial International Monetary Fund loan as well as Western aid. In the short term, Gulf funding will allow the government to fund its operations. Gulf money however is a Band-Aid that will not enable the government to tackle Egypt’s structural problems. The need for international support is likely to be enhanced once the military’s popular cover disintegrates.

The United States and the European Union have so far shied away from calling a spade a spade. While they have condemned the violence and called for dialogue, they have refused to define the military ousting of an elected president as a coup. In the absence of any real leverage, doing so, including in the United States accepting the legal requirement of a cut-off of $1.5 billion a year primarily in military aid, would enhance Western leverage when Egypt turns to them for help. That leverage could enable Western nations to help Egypt when it is ready to cut short a path that post-Mubarak Egypt has been traveling for the past 2.5 years and that took the Philippines more than a decade to learn.

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

Say it ain't so, Joe

The definition of a "sports lawyer," some may say, is simply an attorney who represents an athlete in whatever the capacity. Thus, enter into the fraternity Joe Tacopina, who the New York Post once called "The most hated lawyer in New York." Tacopina received such high praise by getting off certain notorious alleged rapists, cop killers, other scoundrels and low lifes the Post had already decided were guilty and thus not worthy of a real trial.

Tacopina's latest client is none other than Alex Rodriguez, the so-called "Bernie Madoff of baseball." Every time we think Joe has reached bottom, he dredges a little more from the pond.

And, of course, like any good high profile media mouthpiece, Tacopina had to enter the fray with a bang. What he has alleged, however, is far more scandalous than the offense his client is accused of committing. Tacopina has asserted that, in no less than last year's playoff series against the Tigers, the Yankees inserted an ailing A-Rod in the lineup because they wanted him to suffer a career ending injury.

In a recent article, Tacopina told the The New York Times that the Yankees "rolled him out there like an invalid and made him look like he was finished as a ballplayer."

Let's get this straight. It wasn't that the owners had a callous disregard for a player's condition but continued to play him because it was their best chance of winning. That one is old hat, having been voiced by such notables as J.R. Reed and Bill Walton. No, what Tacopina is saying is that the Yankees chose to play a position player they knew gave them less chance to win in the hope that it would rid them of having to play him next year. Bear in mind, this is the New York 27 World Championships Yankees we are talking about for whom winning it all is the only thing that is supposed to matter.

Like any good defense lawyer, Tacopina has no evidence for such a claim, at least none that he is bothering to share. If it were true, it certainly would be a more serious violation than ingesting banned performance enhancing drugs. It would be the equivalent of throwing a bout because the bosses had money on the other guy. It would make Joe Girardi the Joe Jackson of Managers.

Which brings me back to the idea of a practitioner of sports law. What separates it from other fields is both context and consequence. While the interests of the individual client remain paramount, the issues invariably resonate through the past and are sure to be heard going forward.

A-Rod claims not to have heard or read what his attorney has claimed to be facts. He should have read the playbook

The Latest in the ARod Saga

The ARod saga continued this week with allegations, shared by 60 Minutes, that Rodriguez's "inner circle" acquired and shared documents with Yahoo! Sports implicating Ryan Braun, among others, in the Biogenesis scandal.

While ARod has lost the support of MLB and fans for some time, this revelation, if true, may have finally turned fellow players and union against him once for and for all.  Cheating is bad, selling out your brethren is worse.

Not surprisingly, editors of The Sports Law Blog, became "go to" sports law experts on the unfolding situation.  Michael McCann penned a piece for CNNSI evaluating the potential legal ramifications of this latest twist in the ARod story in this article yesterday.  I was interviewed on the leading sports radio show in Canada (eh!) by Bob McCown on his Prime Time Sports show on Sportsnet.  You can listen to the interview at the 28:30 mark of yesterday's 4:00 pm hour here.  [OK, I know a lead story on CNNSI is a tad more impressive than a 10 minute interview on Toronto Sports Radio but I'm trying....]

Well, I'm heading to Fenway to watch my beloved Red Sox battle the Yankees this afternoon...any recommendations on what I should put on the sign I'll be taking?

Soccer militants put their mark on Egyptian protests

By James M. Dorsey

A soccer brawl last year in which more than 70 militant soccer fans died galvanized significant numbers of Egyptians against the military and security forces. The brawl accelerated the military’s desire to turn power over to an elected government.

Eighteen months later, mass protests, involving Muslim Brothers, non-Brothers and militant, street battle-hardened soccer fans are opposing the military ouster of elected president Mohammed Morsi and the subsequent brutal crackdown on the Brotherhood, both of which were backed by a significant segment of Egyptian society.

The ingrained resistance to military rule and arbitrary security forces of many soccer fans and the youth groups that formed the backbone of the popular uprising that forced President Hosni Mubarak out of office in early 2011 is again visible in more than the fact that it has been adopted by a far wider part of the Egyptian public. It has been reinforced by what many Egyptians perceive to be a restoration of repressive features of the Mubarak era.

Events in recent days have demonstrated that while Egypt remains deeply divided public opinion is fluid and that backing for the military coup against Mr. Morsi is fragile and conditional. The first cracks in that support have manifested themselves despite a significant number of Egyptians egging the military and the security forces on to be even tougher in their crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.

In quick succession, various prominent supporters of the coup have resigned or sought to distance themselves from the brutality of the crackdown that as of this writing has caused the death of more than 700 people.

Mohammed el Baradei, an international civil servant and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, resigned as vice-president of the military-appointed government that succeeded Mr. Morsi because in his words "the beneficiaries of what happened … are those who call for violence, terrorism and the most extreme groups".

Khaled Dawoud, spokesman of the National Salvation Front, an umbrella for 11 pro-military political parties, stepped down days later because a majority of the Front refused to condemn the bloodshed at the hands of the security forces. His successor, Ahmed Howari, in one of his first public statements was careful to balance his remarks with expressions of sincere regret about the way security forces were seeking to repress the opposition to the military.

The impact of the fans goes further than the fact that their anti-military attitudes have gained greater currency because of qualms about military disruption of a democratic process, even if Mr. Morsi had succeeded in becoming widely reviled after only a year in office, and security force brutality that was one of the main drivers of Mr. Mubarak’s ousting. It is also evident in various forms of pro-Morsi protest, including the jumping up and down while chanting, a typical way for militant soccer fans or ultras to support their club, and the waving of flags with a skull and crossbones emblem.

By the same token, Egypt’s deep polarization as well as the crisis in Egyptian soccer that was accelerated by last year’s deadly brawl in Port Said has not left the militant soccer fans untouched. While the ultras as organizations have refrained from joining the fray, many of their members and leaders have, reflecting the gamut of political views in their ranks.

Ironically, many Ultras White Knights, the fan group of storied Cairo club Al Zamalek SC, which traces its root to support of the monarchy that was toppled by a military coup in 1952 and replaced by Arab nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, an army colonel, who became the club’s president and brutally repressed the Brotherhood, have joined the pro-Morsi protests. The Black Bloc, the vigilante group that emerged last year to defend anti-Morsi protesters against both the security forces and Brotherhood attackers are believed to be siding with the police in the crackdown on the Brotherhood.

The UWK’s arch rivals, Ultras Ahlawy, the fan group of Al Ahli SC, historically the nationalist club, this week issued its first anti-Brotherhood statement. The statement ended the group’s silence with regard to the government while Mr. Morsi was in office. By refraining from attacking the government, the group had hoped that harsh verdicts would be served in the trial of those responsible for the deaths in Port Said. It got only partial satisfaction. While 21 supporters of Port Said’s Al Masri SC club were sentenced to death, seven of the nine security officials were acquitted.

“The ultras have become fascists. Like Egypt, they have collapsed. They have no values and no real beliefs,” said a former ultras leader who left his group in disgust at the political turn it had taken.

In a perverse way, the ultras’ dilemma is not dissimilar from that of the Brotherhood. Neither could decide what it really was. The Brotherhood has yet to make up its mind what it is: a social or a political movement. That decision may become easier if it survives the current crackdown and potentially emerges strong enough to negotiate terms of a political solution to Egypt’s crisis.

The ultras refused to acknowledge that they were as much about politics as they were about soccer. Their battle for freedom in the stadiums and their prominent role in the toppling of Mr. Mubarak, the opposition to the military rulers that succeeded him and the Morsi government made them political by definition. Yet, those who populated their rank and file were united in their support for their club and their deep-seated animosity towards the security forces but on nothing else.

The ultras’ fate could change if Egypt continues down the road it has embarked on of a restoration of Mr. Mubarak’s police state. Repression with little more than a democratic facade could again turn stadium into political battlefields against military and security force control whether overt or behind-the scenes; brutal and unaccountable security forces; and autocratic government masked by hollowed out democratic institutions.

“I’m afraid of the return of the military state. That is not what I fought for in the stadiums and on Tahrir Square. I’m also afraid of the Brotherhood. It’s a choice between two evils. If you ask me now, I’d opt for the military, but that could well change once this is all over,” the former ultra said.

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

When a (Sports Law) Research Line Ends

Edward Elger recently published the Handbook on the Economics of Women in Sports.  The 443 page tome was edited by Eva Marikova Leeds and Michael A. Leeds.  I contributed a chapter entitled "The Goals and Impacts of Age Restrictions in Sports."  As I was flipping through the pages, it dawned on me that the publication of my chapter marked the end of my decade-long inquiry into the legality and efficacy of minimum age rules in the sports industry.

My inquiry started as 2L, when I wrote a full length law review article examining the WTA Tour's so-called "Capriati Rule" under American antitrust law  A few years later, I penned a case note about the Toscana v. PGA Tour case.  After the NBA and NBPA agreed on a minimum age rule, I wrote a short piece about the new rule in basketball.

After a trilogy of law-focused articles, my attention turned to testing the efficacy (and effect) of such rules.  With sports labor market data largely in the public domain, I opted to statistically test both the WTA Tour rule and the NBA-NBPA policy.  The former was published in 2011 in the Journal of Labor Research.  The latter was published last year in the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports.  With a dozen unrelated research projects in my queue and my interests moving elsewhere, I am fairly certain that my survey piece in the handbook edited by Leeds and Leeds will be my last contribution in this area for quite some time.

If/when there is another Clarett-type lawsuit challenging a sports league's age rule, there will, undoubtedly, be another flurry of academic work in the area.  Likewise, on the empirical side, researchers will have access to larger data sets with less censored data in the years ahead.  I will be very interested to see how this "sports law analytics" research line is extended by others.

US Tightrope Walk: Arab Autocrats Try to Redefine Terrorism

RSIS presents the following commentary US Tightrope Walk: Arab Autocrats Try to Redefine Terrorism By James M. Dorsey It is also available online at this link. (To print it, click on this link.). Kindly forward any comments or feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, at  RSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg No. 148/2013 dated 12 August 2013 US Tightrope Walk: Arab Autocrats Try to Redefine Terrorism By James M. Dorsey Synopsis The United States is walking a tightrope with US Secretary of State John Kerry’s controversial endorsement of the toppling of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi as a “restoration of democracy”. The endorsement is likely to be seen by Islamist and non- Islamist anti-government protesters as backing for conservative Arab autocrats who project their crackdowns on opposition forces as a ‘struggle against terrorism’. That perception will gain currency as Egyptian security forces prepare to crack down on mass pro-Morsi demonstrations in Cairo. Commentary US SECRETARY of State John Kerry sought to position his controversial endorsement of Egypt’s military coup as part of the Obama administration’s support for popular demands for change.  Kerry noted that millions of Egyptians had backed the ousting of Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president. In doing so, Kerry lent support to the equally controversial notion of Morsi having been deposed by ‘popular impeachment’ - as put forward by Mona Ekram-Obeid, an Egyptian politician with close ties to the Mubarak regime and the military. Redefining terrorism? Kerry’s endorsement, willy-nilly, provided cover for the military which has justified its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood - involving the arrest of hundreds of Brothers, legal proceedings against leaders of the Brotherhood, closure of media associated with the group and the targeting of businesses believed to support it – as a fight against violence and terrorism. It is likely to be also exploited by autocrats across the region who justify brutality by security forces and restrictions on freedoms as a ‘struggle against terrorism’. By defining legitimate, peaceful, democratic opposition to the government as terrorism, Middle Eastern and North African autocrats like Egyptian supreme military commander, deputy prime minister and defence minister General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi; Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa; King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia; and embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have arguably given the battle against political violence and terrorism a new meaning. The Brotherhood’s mass protest against the coup, continued demonstrations against Bahrain’s minority Sunni rulers despite a brutal crackdown two years ago, and intermittent minority Shiite protests in Saudi Arabia, have all been largely peaceful. The protests against Assad morphed into an insurgency and civil war only after the regime persistently responded brutally with military force. Yet, the rulers of Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Syria have denounced their own domestic opponents as ‘terrorists’. To be sure, the crackdown on the Brotherhood in Egypt is making it more difficult for the group’s leadership to control its more  militant fringe, sparking incidents of violence on both sides of the divide as well as a swelling insurgency in the Sinai. In many ways, the redefinition of terrorism revives the notion of one man’s liberation fighter being another’s terrorist. It is designed to force domestic public opinion and the United States to choose between autocracy or illiberal democracy and the threat of terrorism. It is an echo of the argument used by ousted autocrats including Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Tunisia’s Zine El Abedeine Ben Ali and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh to justify their repressive policies. Cover for crackdown on political dissent The attempt at redefinition has allowed King Hamad to call on the Bahraini Parliament to enact 22 counter-terrorism recommendations it adopted last month that would ban many expressions of political dissent. The recommendations include revoking citizenship of those linked to terrorism; banning sit-ins, rallies, and public gatherings in the capital Manama; granting carte blanche to security forces; and prohibiting use of social media to organise protests. The implementation of the recommendations is likely to be put to the test on August 14 when opposition groups plan anti-government demonstrations. The recommendations no doubt seek to exploit a sense of alarm among Bahrainis after a car bomb blast last month near a mosque in Manama, the most serious of a string of sporadic acts of political violence on the Gulf island. Bahraini officials lay the blame for the violence at Iran’s doorstep, which it accuses of fostering terrorism and interfering in the island’s domestic affairs. The criminalisation of political opposition is more likely to be a recipe for increased political violence stemming from mounting frustration and despair. Egypt has so far largely been spared political violence despite incidents in the Sinai desert which the military has sought to link to the Brotherhood without providing any evidence. Violence so far has involved security forces targeting pro-Morsi protesters. By the same token, the crackdown on the Brotherhood as well as the military-guided government’s vow to no longer tolerate the mass protests hardly lends credibility to assertions that the Brotherhood should drop its demand that Morsi be reinstated and take its rightful place in the political process. US walking on thin ice European, African and US mediators are seeking to mediate a compromise that allows the military and the Brotherhood to reach an accommodation without losing face. Kerry’s description of the coup as a ‘restoration of democracy’ may well have been a gesture to create the basis for such a compromise. His reference to popular support for the coup nonetheless puts the Obama administration on thin ice as cracks begin to appear among the opponents of the Brotherhood while supporters of the Brothers maintain their peaceful protests against the military intervention. Already, prominent Egyptian opposition figures have voiced concern that support for the coup is leading to the restoration of significant pillars of the Mubarak-era autocracy and a dialogue of the deaf that promises a zero-sum-game approach to politics rather than pluralism. Kerry’s endorsement of Morsi’s ouster is highly controversial as it marked a dramatic reversal in the US position of support for peaceful, democratic change as underscored clearly in President Obama’s January 2009 inaugural address. Obama had then warned autocrats across the globe: "To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history." Two years later, after popular uprisings had toppled the autocratic leaders of Egypt and Tunisia and were threatening the rulers of Bahrain, Libya, Yemen and Syria, Obama went a step further. He sought to put the US behind anti-government protests in the Middle East and North Africa while at the same time avoiding a rupture with the region’s autocrats. “We cannot hesitate to stand squarely on the side of those who are reaching for their rights, knowing that their success will bring about a world that is more peaceful, more stable, and more just,” he said in a major Middle East policy speech. Obama’s policy in the Middle East and North Africa has been driven by a desire to live up to American ideals and put the US “on the right side of history” while at the same time protecting US national interests by avoiding a rupture with the region’s autocrats. That precarious balancing act is becoming increasingly difficult. To maintain its tightrope act, the Obama administration will have to draw a clear distinction between peaceful, legitimate and democratic expression of dissent and terrorism. Failure to do so will increasingly, in public perception in the Middle East and North Africa, put it in the camp of those seeking to stymie political change.    James M. Dorsey is Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan  Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. Click here for past commentaries. Find us on Facebook. Due to the high number of publications by our RSIS Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS), RSIS maintains a separate subscription facility for the Centre. Please click here to subscribe to the Centre's publications.Click here to update your subscription in RSIS mailing list.

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

By James M. Dorsey

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

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

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

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

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

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

“FIFA rules nations”

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

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

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

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

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

Sports governance: A sound policy prescription

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

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

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

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

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

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

Proactive anticipation rather than defensive reaction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Brotherhood United’ as Egypt Islamists stage football friendly (JMD quoted on Al Arabiya)

‘Brotherhood United’ as Egypt Islamists stage football friendly

Monday, 12 August 2013

A member of the Brotherhood and Mursi supporter during a match with pro-Mursi football players. (Reuters)

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Eman El-Shenawi - Al Arabiya

From sit-ins to a kick-off, supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and ousted President Mohammad Mursi took part in a football match on Sunday.

Pro-Mursi crowds cheered the footballers. (Reuters)

Protesters from Rabaa al-Adawiya played against protesters from Ennahda. The teams were named after squares in and around Cairo where they have camped out for over a month, staged the friendly on the same night that security and government sources said police are expected to start taking action against them.

The match took place in Ennahda square, where they are camping in Giza, south of Cairo

The Rabaa al-Adawiya team won 5-2 against Ennahda. Pro-Mursi crowds were seen cheering, drumming and chanting on the sidelines of the match, as seen in a video.

Football has long been a passion in Egypt but since the revolt of 2011, politics has taken a more center stage.

'Irritating'

Former Egyptian footballer Gamal Abdelhamid, who played for the country’s national team during the 1990 FIFA World Cup finals, described Sunday’s game as “irritating.”

“The game will not make people side with the Brotherhood, nor see their ‘peaceful’ side. Instead, it will irritate many,” Abdelhamid told Al Arabiya English.

Abdelhamid described himself as a neither a supporter nor an opponent on the July 3 military-backed outer of Mursi.

“The current political stalemate in the country has made Egyptian across the country worried about the future. This is not the suitable time for such a football match.”

“By playing the match, and singing and dancing, the Brotherhood and Mursi supporters will not be taken seriously.”

Meanwhile, Egyptian football star Helmy Tolan, who is currently coaching Premier League team Zamalek, said the pro-Mursi protesters are “free to protest how they want” but that they are playing “in stoppage time.”

“Time is nearly up for them. Egypt has returned to how it was [before Mursi’s rule] and they are bound to end their protests sooner or later.”

But is there really an issue with football fitting into the protests?

“You have children and whole families out on those squares. It’s a mixture of politics, entertainment and mobilization,” says James Dorsey, a columnist and the author of the widely acclaimed and quoted blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

“I don’t see what the issue is of football fitting into that. On top of that you have a fair number of militant, or hardcore, soccer fans on those squares.

“There’s no question about the fact that Egypt is extremely divided and is in crisis. But the notion that life should stop because you’re in crisis is absurd,” Dorsey added.