The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

By James M. Dorsey When Ramazan Kizil established Dalkurd FF, one of Europe’s most successful immigrant soccer teams, in a remote town in northern Sweden, he dreamt of one day raising the Swedish and the Kurdish flag alongside one another in a European championship. These days, Mr. Kizil’s goals are more immediate: aiding embattled Kurdish fighters fending off attacks by Islamic State, the jihadist group that controls a swath of Syria and Iraq, in the Syrian-Turkish border town of Kobani. Mr. Kizil’s Dalkurd sparked anger in the Swedish Football Federation (SFF), further fuelled debate within the international sports community about the relationship between sports and politics, and focused attention on the blowback of conflict in the Middle East and North African on migrant communities in Europe, when the club flashed a sign saying ‘Save Kobani’ during a recent soccer match. The club based in Borlänge, an iron and paper mill town 300 kilometres north of Stockholm, raise...

By James M. Dorsey Soccer fans exploiting stadia as contested public space emerged more than three years ago as a key force in anti-government protests that toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and opposition to subsequent military rule. With stadia closed to spectators for much of the period since then, protesting students backed by militant football fans have turned university campuses into the new stadia with hundreds detained and scores killed. Theirs is a battle for public space and resistance to efforts by general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al Sisi to depoliticize youth emboldened by its success in overthrowing a dictator after 30 years in office and angered by their being side-lined in the wake of their successful revolt and the rolling back of heavily fought achievements. With Mr. Al Sisi employing brute force by security forces, a private security firm reportedly owned by generals and regime-friendly businessmen, and Mubarak-era thugs, and a crackdown on...

If Jordan’s Prince Ali nominates for FIFA presidency, it’s a positive move Australia should support Simon Hill FOX SPORTS October 28, 2014   3:32PM SHARE expand Share on facebook YOUR FRIENDS' ACTIVITY NEW!   Discover news  with your friends.  Give it a try. To get going, simply connect with your favourite social network: Facebook Full Frank Lowy 1 on 1 chat 19:34 FUNNY thing, democracy. Here in the west, we like to champion our commitment to the idea of fair and free elections. A proper contest, where the best man (or woman) wins, according to the will of the electorate. But in football at least, that commitment will be put to the test over the next twelve months. Locally, the FFA elections in November 2015 will decide who succeeds Frank Lowy as Chairman of Australia’s governing body. Officially, global executive search firm, Egon Zehnder, has been engaged to “find” the r...

Beitar Jerusalem fans By James M. Dorsey Mounting tension between Israel and Palestinians on the occupied West Bank and in East Jerusalem have spilt on to Israeli Palestinian soccer pitches in Israel proper as Israel swings towards ultra-nationalists that make Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu look like the best card in a bad hand. Israeli human rights and legal advocacy group Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights charged in a petition to the Tel Aviv district court that the Israel Football Association (IFA) was segregating Israeli and Palestinian teams and discriminating Israeli Palestinian players in its Shomron amateur division. Adalah was acting on behalf of Muhammad Lutfi from the Israeli town of Umm al-Fahem, the father of a young Israeli Palestinian soccer player. In its petition to the court Adalah said the IFA had advised 13 of the 15 Palestinian teams in the division that they were being moved into a division for Palestinians only. The remaini...

Saudi War With Islamic State Echoes Kingdom’s Own Past By Glen Carey     Oct 23, 2014 11:40 PM GMT+0800     - Comments   Email   Print Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Save Photographer: Gokhan Sahin/Getty Images Smoke and dust rise over Syrian town of Kobani after an airstrike, as seen from the...  Read More Related Islamic State Advances When Saudi rulers send warplanes on missions against Islamic State, they’re targeting a group whose theocratic ideology and roots in desert warfare overlap at least partly with the kingdom’s own present and past. The world’s largest oil exporter has evolved into a mostly urban society in its eight decades of statehood, yet nomadic fighters erupting from the desert in a blaze of religious zeal are still part of its foundation narrative. Today in Saudi Arabia , as in the territory controlled by Islamic State in Syria  and  Iraq , women must wear black abayas, shops al...