The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

By James M. Dorsey A Singapore court has ordered veteran journalist and scholar JMD to reveal his sources for his reporting on an audit of suspended world soccer body FIFA vice president and Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Mohammed Bin Hammam's management of AFC's finances and agreement with a Singapore-based company on the group's marketing rights. The court accepted a demand by World Sports Group (WSG) to instruct the journalist and scholar to reveal his sources on the grounds that the audit was confidential and that the sources had defamed the company. The court in a four-hour hearing however stayed its decision pending an appeal that Mr. Dorsey's lawyers, N. Sreenivasan and Sujatha Selvakumar of Straits Law Practice LLC, will submit in the coming days. Mr. Dorsey's lawyers argued that he was not a party to any confidentiality agreement and that if WSG had an issue it should take it up with the AFC to whom the original report...

  0     0     0   Above: Mohamed bin Hammam in a 2011 file photo AFP Friday, Sep 28, 2012 SINGAPORE - Singapore's High Court ordered a blogger to reveal his sources Friday after he reported that a leaked internal audit detailed large payments to suspended Asian soccer chief Mohamed bin Hammam. Lawyers for James M. Dorsey, a Singapore-based academic and journalist, and  the complainant, sports marketing company World Sport Group, both said the move was approved after a closed-door session lasting nearly four hours. "The application was allowed pending appeal," Dorsey's lawyer N. Sreenivasan told AFP. Dorsey had reported details on his blog, "The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer", of a leaked PricewaterhouseCoopers internal audit of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), which he said listed payments to its president, bin Hammam. The multi-million dollar paym...

By James M. Dorsey Supporters of Leeds United have welcomed a Middle East bid to acquire their troubled English soccer club with no clarity about who the real buyer is. The Leeds United Supporters Trust described the announcement by the Bahrain-based Gulf Finance House in a letter to the island nation’s stock exchange that one of its subsidiaries, GFH Capital Limited, had agreed to “lead and arrange the acquisition of Leeds City Holdings,” the parent company of Leeds United, as “great news.” Trust chairman Garry Cooper said Leeds fans were “hoping for investment in the team and for Leeds United to be glorious again.” He noted that a return of the club to the Premier League after it was relegated in 2007 to England’s second division as a result of its financial problems would reap its new owners profits from Leeds United’s share in the GBP 3.2 billion in broadcast revenues. The risk is however that GFH because of a confidentiality clause declined to reveal on beh...

RSIS presents the following commentary Impact of Anti-US Protests: Healthy Change in the Muslim World 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. 179/2012 dated 25 September 2012 Impact of Anti-US Protests: Healthy Change in the Muslim World   By James M. Dorsey        Synopsis Demonstrations against an American-made anti-Islam video clip have sparked fierce debates in the Muslim world. They also provoked demonstrations against militant Islamists and spurred initiatives by governments and religious authorities to turn anger into constructive engagement with the rest of the world. Commentary THIS MONTH’s violent protests in Muslim countries against the bigoted anti-Islam video on the Internet have taken place against the backdrop of popular uprisings in...

http://www.jensweinreich.de/2012/09/23/2-sitzen-sie-bequem-mark-pieth-und-james-m-dorsey/

By James M. Dorsey The Kosovo Football Federation (KFF) and soccer-crazy Kosovars are not the only ones in anxious anticipation of this coming Friday’s executive committee meeting of world soccer body FIFA that is expected to decide the terms on which Kosovo will be allowed to play international friendlies. So will the Kurdistan Football Association and equally soccer-mad Kurds. Kosovo and Catalonia, which already has been granted permission by FIFA to play international friendlies, are models for Kurdistan to whom soccer is also an important tool in achieving recognition as a nation and statehood. For Kurdistan, it is an uphill battle. Kosovo and Catalonia have a leg up on Kosovo.  Unlike Kurdistan, an autonomous region in Iraq that enjoys no recognition from an international community afraid that its independence would further destabilize the Middle East, Kosovo has been recognized by the United States, 36 European nations including 22 European Union members, a...

21.09.2012 Share Wie ein Journalist Mohamed Bin Hammam bekämpft From 11 Freunde and Nahost Fussball Angriff auf die Pressefreiheit Der Fall Mohamed Bin Hammam beschäftigt weiter die internationale Fußballszene. Hat der ehemalige AFC-Präsident manipuliert und bestochen? Der Journalist James Dorsey sagt: ja. Jetzt versucht der Funktionär den Reporter zum Schweigen zu bringen. Ein Angriff auf die Pressefreiheit? TEXT: HELEN STAUDE BILD: IMAGO Wenn in den vergangenen Monaten über Mohamed Bin Hammam und den asiatischen Fußballverband berichtet wurde, ging es meistens um das Thema Korruption und Geld. Hat der Qatari und ehemalige Präsident des Asiatischen Fußball Verbandes (AFC) Bin Hammam mit viel Geld Stimmen für die Wahl zum Präsidenten der FIFA gekauft? Hat er seine Position als AFC-Präsident missbraucht? Im englischsprachigen Raum gibt es wohl keinen zweiten Journalisten, der so akribisch und lange über die Machenschaften der Fußballfunktionä...

By James M. Dorsey Iranian state television has accused Singapore-based marketer World Sport Group (WSG) of trying to overcharge it for the broadcasting of Iranian national team 2014 World Cup qualifiers qualifiers in what it said was a breach of international rules. The television’s legal counsel, Gholamreza Rafiee, said in a live interview quoted by Iranian news agency Kabir News that “four years ago at the same time we paid $4 million to broadcast Team Melli matches in World Cup qualification. But now World Sport Group wants to charge us over $40 for the same service. We paid $7.5 to broadcast World Cup 2010 and we bought the London 2012 broadcasting right for only $1 million. World Sport Group is trying to swindle Asian countries for broadcasting World Cup qualification matches.” Mr. Rafiee said that Lebanese television had earlier this month for the same reason refused to pay WSG for the broadcasting of a World Cup qualifier in which Lebanon surprisingly defea...

Disqualified: Hani Abou-Reida By James M. Dorsey Egyptian militant soccer fans, one of the country’s largest civic groups, won their second political victory this month with the Egyptian Football Associations’ (EFA) disqualification of world soccer body FIFA executive committee member Hani Abou-Reida as a candidate for the EFA presidency. Mr. Abou-Reida’s disqualification was one of six demands put forward by Ultras Ahlawy, the militant, highly politicised, street battle-hardened support group of crowned Cairo club Al Ahly SC. The militants issued their demands after first storming an Al Ahly training ground and then the EFA’s headquarters. Mr. Abou-Reida, believed to be close to disgraced FIFA vice-president and Asian Football Confederation president Mohammed Bin Hammam, who was suspended 15 months ago on charges of bribery, corruption and financial mismanagement, was a member of Mr. Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).  Mr. Abou-Reida was fur...

By James M. Dorsey Malaysian authorities have arrested an associate of suspended Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and world soccer body FIFA vice president Mohammed bin Hammam on suspicion of theft of documents from AFC’s offices in Kuala Lumpur. A AFC lawyer, Mohamad Bustaman Abdullah, identified the associate as Tony Kang, the husband of AFC’s finance director under Mr. Bin Hammam, who was let go after allegations of financial misconduct surfaced against the Qatari national, according to Agence France Press (AFP). Mr. Abdullah said Mr. Kang had surrendered himself to Malaysian police and is expected to be charged in court in Kuala Lumpur after police reports identified him as having participated in the theft. Mr. Kang’s arrest came as FIFA launched a new probe into allegations that Mr. Bin Hammam had last year sought to buy the votes of Caribbean soccer officials in his failed bid to challenge FIFA president Sepp Blatter in elections for the group’s preside...