SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

DANYEL REICHE
TAMIR SOREK
(eds)

Sport, Politics, and

Society in the Middle East

3
 3
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
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© Danyel Reiche and Tamir Sorek and the Contributors, 2019

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ISBN 9780190065218
 CONTENTS

Acknowledgements vii
About the Contributors ix
List of Illustrations xiii

Introduction Tamir Sorek and Danyel Reiche 1

1. Mapping the ‘Sports Nahda’: Toward a History of Sports in the
Modern Middle East Murat C. Yıldız 11
2. Football’s Role in How Societies Remember: The Symbolic Wars
of Jordanian–Palestinian Football Dag Tuastad 41
3. Hapoel Tel Aviv and Israeli Liberal Secularism
Tamir Sorek 55
4. Qatari Female Footballers: Negotiating Gendered Expectations
Charlotte Lysa 73
5. Sportswomen’s Use of Social Media in the Middle East and
North Africa (MENA) Nida Ahmad 93
6. The World Cup and Freedom of Expression in Qatar
Craig L. LaMay 107
7. Turkish Sports: Lost in Politics? Cem Tınaz 123
8. Developing a National Elite Sport Policy in an Arab Country:
The Case of Lebanon Nadim Nassif 147
9. Legacies of Mega-Sporting Events in Developing Countries:
A Case Study of Lebanon Danyel Reiche 165

v
 CONTENTS

10. The Business of Sports in the Gulf Cooperation Council Member

States Simon Chadwick 183
Notes 205
Index 263

vi
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This volume is the product of two working group meetings held under the aus-
pices of the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) at
Georgetown University in Qatar. We would like to thank Mehran Kamrava,
Director of CIRS, and Zahra Babar, Associate Director for Research, for initiat-
ing and guiding this project. We would like to also thank Suzi Mirgani,
Managing Editor at CIRS, whose support and advice in the editing process was
tremendously helpful. We also benefited from the assistance of the staff at
CIRS: Elizabeth Wanucha, Jackie Starbird, Islam Hassan, Misba Bhatti, and
Sabika Shaban. In addition to the authors of the chapters in this volume, we
would like to acknowledge the contribution of the following scholars to this
project: Mahfoud Amara, Ferman Konukman, Nnamdi Madichie, Monèm
Jemni, and Betsi Stephen. Finally, grateful acknowledgment also goes also to the
Qatar Foundation for its support of research and other scholarly endeavors.

vii
 ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Nida Ahmad is a PhD student at the University of Waikato in New Zealand.

Her research examines the digital lives of Muslim sportswomen and how they
use social media to represent aspects of their identities. Ahmad has co-
authored a number of publications, including ‘SDP and Action Sports’, in
Routledge Handbook of Sport for Development and Peace (2018) with Holly
Thorpe and Neftalie Williams; ‘Youth Sport in the Middle East’, in Routledge
Handbook of Youth Sport (2015) with Holly Thorpe; ‘Youth, Action Sports
and Political Agency in the Middle East: Lessons from a Grassroots Parkour
Group in Gaza’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport (2013) with
Holly Thorpe; and ‘Transnational families in Armenia and Information
Communication Technology Use’, International Journal of Communication
(2013) with Katy Pearce and Janine Slaker.
Simon Chadwick is Professor of Sports Enterprise and Director of the Centre
for Sports Business at the University of Salford (UK). He is also Professor of
Eurasian Sport and Director of CESI (Centre for the Eurasian Sport Industry)
at emylon, based in Shanghai (China). Chadwick is currently engaged in work
examining the links between sports sponsorship and soft power; the industrial
development of sports in the Gulf region; China’s quest to become a leading
football nation; the phenomenon of transnational sports fandom; the role
social media plays in sport; and the way equity in sports brands is built
through experiential marketing.
Craig L. LaMay is a journalist, an Associate Professor at Northwestern
University in Evanston, Illinois, and currently Associate Professor in
Residence at Northwestern University in Qatar. He is author, co-author, or

ix
 ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

editor of several books, among them: Measures of Press Freedom and Media
Contributions to Development: Evaluating the Evaluators, with Monroe Price
and Susan Abbott (Peter Lang, 2011); Institutional Failures: Duke Lacrosse,
Universities, the News Media and the Legal System, with Howard Wasserman
(Ashgate, 2011); Inside the Presidential Debates, with Newton Minow
(University of Chicago, 2008); Exporting Press Freedom: Economic and
Editorial Dilemmas in International Media Assistance (Transaction, 2006);
Journalism and the Problem of Privacy (Erlbaum, 2003); Democracy on the Air,
with Ellen Mickiewicz, Donald Browne, and Charles Firestone (Duke, 2000);
To Profit or Not to Profit: The Commercial Transformation of the Nonprofit
Sector, with Burton Weisbrod (Cambridge, 1998).
Charlotte Lysa is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Culture Studies and
Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo. Her academic interests include
politics and society in the Middle East and North Africa. She is currently
researching female football participation in the Arab Gulf monarchies. Lysa
published an article about Qatar and the World Cup in Babylon—Nordic
Journal of Middle Eastern Studies in 2016, for which she won the Babylon
prize for young researchers; ‘The Banality of Protest? Twitter Campaigns in
Qatar’, with A. Leber in Gulf Affairs: Identity & Culture in the 21st Century
Gulf (2016); and ‘Women’s Sports Programs are Challenging Saudi Arabia’s
Gender Divide’, with A. Leber in Gulf Affairs, special issue, ‘Gender (Im)
Balance in Gulf Societies’ (Spring 2018).
Nadim Nassif is Assistant Professor and Academic Advisor of the physical
education major at Notre Dame University–Louaize, Lebanon. His most
recent publications include: ‘World Ranking of Countries in Elite Sport’,
Rivista Di Diritto Ed Economia Dello Sport (2018); ‘Factors behind Lebanon’s
Difficulties Achieving Success at the Olympics’, The International Journal of
the History of Sport (2017); and ‘Elite Sport Ranking of the “International
Society of Sports Sciences in the Arab World”: An Accurate Evaluation of all
Nations’ Performances International Sports Competitions’, Athens Journal of
Sport (2017).
Danyel Reiche is an Associate Professor of Comparative Politics at the
American University of Beirut (AUB). He graduated with distinction from
Leibniz University Hannover and joined AUB in 2008 after working as a
Visiting Assistant Professor at Georgetown University. Reiche published
Success and Failure of Countries at the Olympic Games in 2016 with Routledge.
His peer-reviewed articles have been published in area study journals, such as

x
 ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics and Journal of Energy Policy,
as well as in broader oriented journals, such as Third World Quarterly and The
Middle East Journal. Professor Reiche has also been invited to write op-eds for
leading international newspapers such as Washington Post and Spiegel Online
and has been frequently interviewed and quoted by major media outlets such
as Le Monde and The Wall Street Journal.
Tamir Sorek is Professor of Sociology at the University of Florida. His studies
focus on the intersection of culture and politics, especially in the fields of
nationalism, collective memory, and sport. In his work, Sorek bridges the gap
between quantitative studies and qualitative humanistic scholarship. He is the
author of Arab Soccer in a Jewish State (Cambridge University Press, 2007),
Palestinian Commemoration in Israel (Stanford University Press, 2015), and is
currently completing a biography of the Palestinian poet Tawfiq Zayyad to be
published by Stanford University Press in 2020. Sorek’s scholarship has been
published worldwide in multiple languages, including French, Arabic,
Indonesian, Turkish, and Hebrew.
Cem Tinaz has been Director of the School of Sports Sciences and
Technology at Istanbul Bilgi University since 2015, and a board member of
the Turkish Tennis Federation since 2009. He authored “Policies for
Naturalisation of Foreign-Born Athletes: Qatar and Turkey in Comparison,”
with Danyel Reiche, in International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics
(2019); “Football in Turkey,” with Emir Güney and Ahmet Talimciler, in
Routledge Handbook of Football Business and Management (2018);
“Globalizing a Brand through Sport Sponsorships: The Case of Turkish
Airlines and its Sport Marketing Efforts,” in Routledge Handbook of
International Sport Business (2018). Tinaz was awarded a 2016/2017
Advanced Olympic Research Grant by the IOC Olympic Studies Centre, for
the project “Examining Positive Outcomes of Unsuccessful Olympic Bids.”
Dag Tuastad is Senior Lecturer in Middle East Studies at the University of
Oslo, where he led the New Middle East Project, and currently heads the Rebel
Rule Project. Tuastad’s academic interests include political culture, power,
resistance, and politics as seen from below. His publications include: Palestinske
Utfordringer (Palestinian Challenges) (Cappelen Damm, 2014), and authored
“‘A Threat to National Unity’—Football in Jordan: Ethnic Divisive or a
Political Tool for the Regime?” The International Journal of the History of Sport
(2014); “From Football Riot to Revolution: The Political Role of Football in
the Arab World,” Soccer and Society (2013); “‘State of Exception’ or ‘State in

xi
 ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Exile?’ The Fallacy of Appropriating Agamben on Palestinian Refugee Camps,”

Third World Quarterly (2017); “The Violent Rise of Palestine’s Lost
Generation,” Middle East Critique (2017); and “Nationalist Patriarchy, Clan
Democracy: How the Political Trajectories of Palestinians in Israel and the
Occupied Territories Have Been Reversed,” Die Welt des Islams (2017).
Murat C. Yıldız is Assistant Professor of History at Skidmore College. He
specializes in the cultural and social history of the modern Middle East. Yıldız
is currently working on a book manuscript that focuses on the development
of a shared sports culture among Muslims, Christians, and Jews of late-nine-
teenth- and early-twentieth-century Istanbul. His work has appeared in the
Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, the Cairo Papers in Social
Science, the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, and the ​Arab Studies
Journal. He is an Assistant Editor for the Arab Studies Journal, a peer-
reviewed, multidisciplinary research publication in the field of Arab and
Middle East studies.

xii
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1: Egyptian students performing gymnastics exercises for

Italy’s King Vittorio Emmanuel III and Queen Elena dur-
ing their trip to Egypt.
Source: ‘Al-hafla al-riyadiya al-kubra li-wizara al-ma‘arif bi
munasiba tashrif hadrati sahibi al-jalala malik wa malika
Italiya,’ al-Abtal, 4 March 1933, p. 4. 12
Figure 2: The wrestling team of the Young Men’s Muslim Association
( Jam‘iyat al-Shubban al-Muslimin).
Source: Al-Abtal, 11 March 1933, p. 22. 19
Figure 3: Basketball game at the American University on Cairo’s
Field Day.
Source: American University of Cairo Archive, Box 5,
Athletics and sport—1920s–1980s—Sports day. 23
Figure 4: The ‘physical training’ section of al-Abtal.
Source: ‘Al-Tarbiyya al-Badaniyya,’ al-Abtal, 4 February
1933, p. 10. 24
Figure 5: Anwar Ahmad on the cover of al-Abtal.
Source: Al-Abtal, 25 February 1933. 26
Figure 6: Egypt’s early-twentieth-century football star Hussein Higazi.
Source: Al-Sayid Faraj, Kabtin Masr: Hussein Higazi
(Cairo: al-Majlis al-A‘la li-Ri‘ayat al-Shabab, 1961). 27
Figure 7: Full two-page article in Spor Alemi (The World of Sports)
about the institutionalization of sports in the Istanbul
Girls’ High School.
Source: ‘İstanbul Kız Lisesi’nde Spor,’ Spor Alemi, 3 March
1926, pp. 10–11. 28

xiii
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 8: Photos of athletes from Egypt and ‘sister regions’ (al-aqtar

al-shaqiqa).
Source: Al-Abtal, 28 January 1933, p. 20. 30
Figure 9: Signed photograph of al-Sayid ‘Abd al-Wahed that he gifted
to al-Abtal.
Source: Al-Abtal, 11 February 1933, p. 18. 31
Figure 10: Advertisement for Istanbul’s ‘sporting mağazası’ (sporting
store).
Source: Spor Alemi, 19 April 1922, p. 10. 32
Figure 11: ‘How do Europeans know Turks?’
Source: ‘Avrupalılar Türkleri Nasıl Biliyorlar?’ Spor Alemi,
8 February 1922, p. 2. 37

xiv
 INTRODUCTION

FROM SPORTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

TO MIDDLE EASTERN SPORTS

Tamir Sorek and Danyel Reiche

Sports in the Middle East have become a major issue in global affairs: Qatar’s
successful bid for the FIFA World Cup 2022 (won in a final vote against the
United States), the 2005 UEFA Champions League Final in Turkey’s most
populous city Istanbul, the European basketball championship EuroBasket in
2017 in Israel, and other major sporting events, such as the annually staged
Formula 1 races in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, have put an international spot-
light on the region. In particular, media around the world are discussing the
question of whether the most prestigious sporting events should be staged in
a predominantly authoritarian, socially conservative, and politically conten-
tious part of the world.1 The influence of sports in the Middle East extends
beyond the region: professional sports clubs around the world have signed
sponsorship deals with Middle Eastern airlines, and stadium-naming rights
have also been signed with those companies. Major football clubs like Paris
Saint-Germain Football Club and Manchester City have been bought by
investors from the Gulf–Qatar and Abu Dhabi, respectively.
The growing visibility of Middle Eastern sports has only recently attracted
the attention of scholars. Although some sporadic academic studies appeared

1
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

as early as the 1980s, we can identify the beginning of a ‘wave’ of scholarship

in the mid-1990s, which intensified in the early 2000s. These studies were
mostly socio-historical, sociological, and anthropological, and they tended to
focus on the particular dynamics of certain countries, including Egypt,2
Turkey,3 Iran,4 Yemen,5 Israel/Palestine,6 and Jordan.7 While more recent
scholarship continues similar patterns, and extends to cover new countries,8
since 2010 we may also identify the addition of two new trends. The first is
related to the power shift in international sports towards Middle Eastern
countries, with the awarding of mega-sporting events to countries such as
Bahrain, Qatar, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. As a result, in the
2010s more scholarship appears to be focused on business, management, and
policy.9 The second trend is the contextualization of various case studies
related to specific countries within a broader regional frame. Numerous vol-
umes on sports in the Arab world, Middle East, or MENA (the Middle East
and North Africa),10 and particularly about soccer,11 have been published
since 2012. This volume is part of both emerging trends, but with its own
particular characteristics.
First, following Abbas Amanat’s question, ‘Is there a Middle East?’,12 we ask
‘is there a Middle Eastern sport?’ In other words, beyond the aggregation of
case studies, can we identify common regional dynamics typical for the
Middle East? This volume, therefore, emphasizes the interdependence
between regional patterns and local developments in particular countries. For
example, chapters in this volume identify common patterns in the historical
developments of Middle Eastern sports, illustrate the common experience of
Muslim female athletes throughout the region, analyze the diverse effects of
regional mega-sporting events on Lebanon, and outline common trends in the
sport business in the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states.
Second, the contributors to this volume share a common understanding of
Middle Eastern sports as a contested terrain, where struggles over resources,
meanings, and identities are constantly taking place, and there is no inevitable
outcome for these struggles. We demonstrate the role sports play in the battle
over social memories related to the Palestinian–Bedouin divide in Jordan, or
over competing definitions of ‘Israeliness’ among Israelis with different
approaches to religion, as well as different ethnic and class backgrounds. In
Lebanon, mega-sporting events have been playing an indirect role in struggles
over the definition of Lebanese national identity, as well as the degree to
which this identity is embedded in the broader Arab world.
These struggles are also related to the various roles sports can play in soci-
etal change in the Middle East. While a major goal of policies aimed at pro-

2
 INTRODUCTION

moting sports in the Middle East is international recognition,13 to what extent

can sports also contribute to changes within the region? In most Middle
Eastern countries sports participation is much lower compared to that in
other regions of the world, which has had severe consequences on the health
of the population, with obesity becoming a major problem, particularly in the
Arabian Peninsula. Does the interest in hosting mega-sporting events, and
using sports as a promotional tool, also lead to improved promotion of sports
at the grassroots level? Since sports in the Middle East has traditionally been
considered a masculine sphere,14 are women in sports gaining acceptance?
And are sports such as football, which are considered to be masculine arenas,
becoming more popular and accepted among girls and their families?
The Middle East is not a homogeneous group of countries: there is political
stability in some countries while others are facing civil wars. Most Middle
Eastern countries are Muslim-majority countries, but some also have large
Christian populations, as well as other religious minority groups. Arabic is the
most widely spoken language in the Middle East, but there are also other
languages spoken, such as Turkish, Persian, Kurdish, and Hebrew. What most
Middle Eastern countries have in common is their colonial legacy and com-
plicated present-day relations with the West. In addition, most of them share
a low ranking on indexes tracking gender equality, as well as on those tracking
democracy and press freedom.15 Can mega-sporting events awarded to Middle
Eastern countries contribute to societal reform, and can they positively affect,
for example, freedom of expression? While such a scenario is possible, this
volume rejects the romantic and deterministic idea that sport always contrib-
utes to societal improvement. Nonetheless, it does highlight specific case stud-
ies where this is indeed the case, for instance the empowerment of women in
particular circumstances and under particular conditions.
As this book shows, the state assumes different roles in various Middle
Eastern sports sectors. In wealthy Middle Eastern countries such as Qatar, and
in emerging market countries such as Turkey, the state plays a central role in
the sports sector. A challenge discussed in the volume is how the private sector
must grow to assist governments in meeting the ambitious visions and targets
for sports. For states such as Lebanon with weak—and some might even
argue, failing—governments, the challenge is different: to fight corruption
around mega-sporting events, especially regarding the allocation of sports
budgets. They also need to develop a more strategic approach that gives some
guidance to stakeholders in order to meet targets such as increased sports
participation and elite sport success.

3
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

This book is the product of a research initiative conducted by the Center

for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) at Georgetown University in
Qatar. In 2017, CIRS invited the contributors to this book as well as other
experts in the field to attend two working group meetings in Doha focused on
‘Sport, Society, and the State in the Middle East.’ All participants contributed
to the review process and provided feedback on the drafts of this edited vol-
ume. The final group of contributors was carefully selected, and includes some
of the most renowned experts in the field. The selected contributions cover a
broad range of Middle Eastern countries, although some nations are more in
focus than others. Two chapters (Lysa and LaMay) entirely, and another chap-
ter partly (Chadwick), focus on Qatar, largely because of the growing interna-
tional interest in the country ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, but also
because Doha hosts multiple international universities and is relatively easy to
access for most researchers from all over the world to conduct their studies.
Similarly, there are two contributions focusing on sports in Lebanon (Nassif
and Reiche), a country with both strong academic and sporting traditions.
Although great effort was made to identify scholars working on all major
Middle Eastern countries, and to include them in the two working group
meetings that ultimately led to this edited volume, not all countries could
be included. For example, there is no chapter in the volume that deals exclu-
sively with Egypt or Iran. However, Murat Yıldız’s chapter provides an
overarching regional history of sport, and dedicates extensive attention to
these two countries.
The volume is thoroughly interdisciplinary, and integrates different aca-
demic disciplines from the humanities and social sciences, including business,
cultural studies, communication, history, journalism, sociology, sports man-
agement, and political science. The ten chapters of this book offer original,
in-depth, theoretically grounded, and richly empirical chapters. The contribu-
tions rely on diverse research methodologies, ranging from ethnographic
work, surveys, and in-depth interviews to reviews of government files and the
growing body of academic literature and media articles on sports in the
Middle East.
The first part of the book (chapters 1 to 5) considers sport a contested
terrain, where various struggles over meaning, resources, and rights, are
fought. The book begins with a historical overview. Some popular discus-
sions give the impression that sport is something new to the Middle East, or
that it is no more than a Western import. Competitive organized physical
activities, however, have been known in the region for centuries, long before

4
 INTRODUCTION

the Western colonial enterprise.16 Still, it is true that the codified and stand-
ardized versions of modern global sports as we know them today were
imported to the Middle East in the late nineteenth century—soon after
their codification in Western countries.
The representation of modern sport as a ‘Western’ institution is the origin
of the first tension we discuss. In the opening chapter, Murat Yıldız traces the
activities of educators, government officials, sports club administrators, stu-
dents, club members, editors, and columnists who helped turn sports into a
regular fixture of the urban landscape of cities across the Middle East.
Furthermore, these actors frequently saw themselves as agents of Western
modernity, and, in this capacity, they aspired to turn the physical activity from
‘fun’ into a broader project of training, disciplining, and educating the self.
His chapter highlights the tension between these two interpretive poles, and
how it is related to the construction of the West vs. East dichotomy. Yıldız’s
chapter is also a response to the rapidly growing study of the history of sports
in various Middle Eastern countries, and questions whether we can talk about
a shared and distinct history of sports in the Middle East. Based on press
research and integration of secondary sources, the chapter traces the emer-
gence and spread of team sports and physical exercise throughout the urban
centers of the Middle East from the late nineteenth century until the 1930s,
and demonstrates that there were important shared discursive and institu-
tional features across the region. The chapter shows that the tension between
sports as fun and sports as a disciplinary tool is by itself an important charac-
teristic of Middle Eastern sporting history.
The next two chapters deal with struggles over the definition of collective
identities. Dag Tuastad analyzes football’s role in how societies remember.
Based on several phases of ethnographic work over two decades, the chapter
demonstrates how football constitutes a dominant arena for battles over
national social memories related to the Palestinian–Bedouin divide in Jordan.
Social memory processes in football arenas represent two related social phe-
nomena. First, collective historical memories are produced. Second, during
football matches, with their symbolic and physical confrontations, these col-
lective memories are also enacted and embodied. Palestinian–Jordanian
encounters on the football field have been especially important in this context,
and have served as a stage for reprocessing and embodying the memory of the
1970 civil war. For Palestinians, as a stateless ethno-national group that lacks
the formal national institutions to preserve a national past in the form of
museums or archaeological preservation, football, and particularly the Wihdat

5
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

team, has become an important alternative. While until the early 1990s the
fans’ chants emphasized identification with the armed struggle, today the
dominant themes are Palestinian common descent, unity, and refugee identity.
At the same time, the team’s alter ego, FC Faisali, has served as a focus of East
Bank Jordanian nationalism, emphasizing tribal roots and values, Islamic tra-
dition, Hashemite loyalty, and the tribal roots of the monarchy.
Similarly, in chapter 3, Tamir Sorek analyzes sport as a sphere of struggle
over Israeli collective identity. The chapter combines analysis of the rhetoric
of Hapoel Tel Aviv hardcore football and basketball fans with a quantitative
demographic examination of the wide circle of sympathizers of various teams.
The bifocal examination reveals that the stadium rhetoric is actually an expres-
sion of fundamental struggles between competing definitions of Israeliness.
The rhetoric of Hapoel fans is an uncommon combination in Israeli sports:
socialism, anti-nationalism, anti-racism, but it also includes violent, sexist,
classist, and Germanophobic content. In addition, hardcore Hapoel fans make
provocative use of Holocaust terminology. This rhetoric is partly related to the
demographic basis of both the hardcore fans and the wider circle of sympa-
thizers who tend to be more middle class and significantly more secular than
the fans other teams. The chapter argues that the transgressive rhetoric of
Hapoel fans is partly related to the decline in the political power of the secular
elite in Israel. The insights are based on an online survey, and studying web-
sites and forums of Hapoel Tel Aviv fans, fan songs available on YouTube, and
phone and Skype interviews with fans.
From struggles over meanings and symbols, the next two chapters take us
to struggles over inclusion of women. In chapter 4, Charlotte Lysa discusses
how Qatari female footballers negotiate gendered expectations in football. On
the one hand, these players are being encouraged by government policies, in
accordance with pressure from international organizations, to pursue sports
careers. On the other hand, these women are subject to a conservative culture,
upheld by specific societal and family values, in which it is largely unaccepta-
ble for a woman to play football. This tension has driven some Qatari women
to create a safe space for their activities by initiating university teams, allowing
them to bypass established norms regarding women and femininity. Based on
interviews with young women engaged in football activities, this chapter
shows that these spaces do not carry the same negative connotations of mas-
culinity that the official clubs and the national team do, thus allowing women
to challenge the perception that it is not possible for a female to play football,
while at the same time preserving their femininity and adhering to societal

6
 INTRODUCTION

moral codes. By relabeling women’s football as a university activity, rather

than something that conflicts with their academic priorities, they are able to
play football without getting into conflict with their families. The women seek
to gain a positive freedom to pursue their objectives and to reclaim control
over shaping their own lives.
While Lysa examines the tensions between athletic aspirations and social
norms on the field, in chapter 5, Nida Ahmad investigates them in the virtual
sphere. Social media creates unique opportunities for sportswomen to engage
in a form of self-branding by sharing aspects of their lives online, but the study
of this phenomenon has so far been limited to the Western context. The chap-
ter presents the findings from a digital ethnography of the social media
accounts of sportswomen from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab
Emirates, Egypt, and Iran, as well as semi-structured interviews with these
women. In contrast to research findings that show Western sportswomen
using social media for self-branding and their tendency to offer intimate
details of their lifestyles, Ahmad shows that Middle Eastern sportswomen
carefully consider what and how they share with their audiences, applying
different strategies to safely and effectively navigate the digital terrain. Family
and cultural constraints are central to their digital decision-making.
In chapter 6, Craig LaMay takes us to another sociopolitical conflict, as he
elaborates on the effects of the 2022 FIFA World Cup on Qatar’s restrictive
media system. How does the World Cup affect rights of expression and pub-
lication in a country that criminalizes, for example, blasphemy and criticism
of the emir? The analysis is based on the author’s conversations with newspa-
per editors in the country, assessing internationally known indices of press
freedom, and the growing body of academic literature on Qatari sport and
media politics. Being home to broadcaster Al Jazeera, Qatar is the most pro-
gressive member of the GCC in matters of free expression, but ranks low on
international indicators. Qatar’s successful bid for the 2022 World Cup has
brought the country both new attention and criticism, with the latter focusing
especially on the kafala labor system. Neither China nor Russia’s media
regimes changed after hosting the Olympics in 2008 and 2014 respectively,
but the chapter argues that Qatar has been relatively open to its critics, and the
award of the World Cup has advanced conversations in the country about
sensitive subjects. To be recognized as a modern and influential state, LaMay
predicts that Qatar will liberalize its media environment, but on its own terms,
which might deviate from Western standards.
The next three chapters deal with other aspects of Middle Eastern sports
politics. In chapter 7, Cem Tınaz examines Turkish sports policy with empha-

7
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

sis on the period since 2002 when the tenure of the Justice and Development
Party (AKP) government began. Based on in-depth interviews with former
Turkish sport ministers and other sport authorities, as well as a review of aca-
demic literature, government files, and press articles, the chapter concludes
that a main focus of Turkish sports policy is on gaining domestic and interna-
tional prestige rather than on increasing sports participation. While Turkey
was five times unsuccessful in its bids for the Olympic Games in 2000, 2004,
2008, 2012, and 2020, it has had several other accomplishments, including
hosting other high-profile international sporting events such as the 2005
UEFA Champions League Final and constructing football stadiums. The
country also gained elite sport success at international championships and the
Olympic Games, with the naturalization of foreign-born athletes a main
driver. The chapter stresses the central role of the state, and the sport sector’s
dependence on government subsidies, since most financial resources come
from the sports betting company Iddaa. When it comes to the low sports
participation in Turkey by international standards, Tınaz argues that the gov-
ernment has so far failed to properly integrate sports with the education sys-
tem, making school sports one of the most problematic areas of sport
development in Turkey.
Compared with other Middle Eastern countries, Turkey has been relatively
successful in international sports. For example, the Turkish men’s national
soccer team finished third in the FIFA World Cup in 2002; the men’s basket-
ball national team finished second in the 2010 World Cup; and the country
has won ninety-one Olympic medals in its history of participation (up until
2018). Lebanon, on the other hand, is located at the other end of the achieve-
ments scale. It has never qualified for the FIFA World Cup, and has only won
four medals at the Olympic Games since it started participating in 1948. To
date, the country’s best achievement is coming sixteenth in the men’s
Basketball World Cup. This is far less than, for example, Estonia, Georgia, and
Jamaica, which are countries with smaller populations and lower GDP than
Lebanon. In chapter 8, Nadim Nassif asks why Lebanon is failing in interna-
tional sport. The chapter argues that the promotion of elite sport has never
been a priority for the Lebanese government. Nassif reviews the academic
literature on elite sport success, and discusses political, economic, demo-
graphic, and cultural factors. It is argued that the meager annual budget allo-
cated by the Lebanese government to the Ministry of Sport is a necessary but
insufficient explanation for Lebanon’s failure in international sport. The
Ministry of Youth and Sport issued a ‘Sport Strategy 2010–2020’, but never

8
 INTRODUCTION

implemented the proposed policies. Beyond the government, there is the

problem of the corruption that is prevalent in the national sport federations.
Nassif highlights how administrators occupy key positions based on their
political affiliations, rather than on their skills and capacities.
Danyel Reiche provides a different perspective on sports in Lebanon. In
chapter 9, he engages with the scholarship that emphasizes the benefits of
mega-sporting events to host countries, from increasing their international
prestige and influence on global politics, through mobilizing national pride,
to serving as a tool of economic development. Reiche investigates the benefits
accrued to Lebanon as a result of hosting four regional mega-sporting events
after the civil war ended in 1990. He examines the similarities and differences
between these four events by examining, in particular, the tangible and intan-
gible legacies. Apart from a review of academic and press articles, primary data
were collected by interviewing key stakeholders in the Lebanese sports sector
who were involved in the events. The chapter concludes that while the events
provided the country with some short-term promotional benefits, they intro-
duced a heavy financial burden, especially regarding stadium and sports hall
construction. Resources to maintain those facilities became a source of cor-
ruption. The chapter suggests that, in the future, Lebanon should consider
co-hosting mega-sporting events with other countries in order to limit the
financial risks. It should also integrate legacy management programs into the
event planning to avoid unused facilities after the events.
Finally, Simon Chadwick discusses sports as a business. He presents an over-
view of sports business in the six Gulf Cooperation Council states. GCC
member states stage sporting mega-events and invest in global sports, for exam-
ple, by acquiring football clubs. The shirt sponsorship and stadium naming-
rights deals of the region’s national airlines aim to create favorable perceptions
of those companies and their nations, as well as to diversify economies beyond
oil and gas. The chapter provides a statistical profile of sport in each GCC
member state and shows that Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman are lagging far
behind Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar in terms of sport indus-
try size. Fluctuating oil prices, political tensions between GCC states, and weak
attendances at games are serious threats to the future growth of the sport indus-
try. Chadwick concludes that the private sector needs to seriously develop in
order to replace the state as the industry’s central focus.
In sum, this book brings together leading scholars of Middle Eastern sports
to portray the complex social, political, cultural, and economic aspects of
sports in the region. The common thread in this volume is that sports in the

9
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Middle East are much more than an ‘interesting angle’ through which to
popularize academic themes. They are themselves a major political and eco-
nomic force that not only reflect but also shape both individuals’ lives and
large-scale social processes. Sporting competitions gain immense visibility in
the media, elicit high levels of emotion by producing drama, and hold great
potential to shape dominant meanings, identities, discourses, and ideologies.

10
 1

MAPPING THE ‘SPORTS NAHDA’

TOWARD A HISTORY OF SPORTS IN THE

MODERN MIDDLE EAST

Murat C. Yıldız1

Introduction

In February 1933, King Vittorio Emmanuel III and Queen Elena of Italy
made an official state visit to Egypt. The visit was a well-publicized event,
aimed at celebrating Egypt’s relationship with Italy.2 Leading western newspa-
pers, such as The New York Times and The Illustrated London News, pointed to
the ‘true Oriental hospitality’ that the Egyptians demonstrated to their royal
guests and the exotic spaces the Italian royal family visited.3 Al-Abtal (the
champions), an Arabic physical culture magazine published in Cairo, focused
its coverage of the visit on an entirely different topic: a ‘sports exhibition.’4
The event was a smashing success. A large crowd of spectators gathered
around the track and in the stands to watch male students from Egyptian
primary and secondary schools put on a show. Dressed in white shorts and
long pants, the ‘sons’ and ‘cubs’ of Egypt marched in unison, performed gym-

11
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

nastics exercises, and contorted their bodies. As the photographs and text of
al-Abtal’s article make abundantly clear, this was a highly choreographed
spectacle (Figure 1). According to al-Abtal, it was none other than King Fuad
himself who ordered Egypt’s ‘Inspector of Physical Education’ (muraqaba
al-tarbiyya al-badaniyya) to organize the sporting performance.5 The organi-
zation of the event raises questions about the significance of sports in Egypt,
more specifically, and the Middle East, more broadly, during the period.
What was so important about demonstrating the athletic acumen of
Egyptian students?

Figure 1: Egyptian students performing gymnastics exercises for Italy’s King Vittorio
Emmanuel III and Queen Elena during their trip to Egypt, al-Abtal.
Source: ‘Al-hafla al-riyadiya al-kubra li-wizara al-ma‘arif bi munasiba tashrif hadrati
sahibi al-jalala malik wa malika Italiya,’ al-Abtal, March 4, 1933, p. 4.

12
 MAPPING THE ‘SPORTS NAHDA’

Al-Abtal’s description of the event offers some important clues. The magnifi-
cent display of Egyptian male bodies at the event, according to the article, was
nothing less than the manifestation of the glorious ‘sports awakening’ (al-
nahda al-riyadiyya) that Egypt and its children were experiencing during this
‘auspicious age’.6 Al-Abtal’s use of the word nahda to refer to sports is signifi-
cant. Nahda literally means awakening or renaissance;7 however, the term also
connoted an entire movement of reform during the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Al-Abtal’s usage established a discursive connection
between sports and a broader reformist project that emerged in urban centers
of the Middle East. In other words, sports was inextricably connected to a
region-wide nahda project that brought together thinkers from a diverse array
of professional and intellectual backgrounds and traditions who were commit-
ted to refashioning and modernizing the self, institutions, the state, and nation.
Historians of the Middle East have recently started to explore the plural-
ity of intellectual exchanges and features that constituted the nahda.8
Nonetheless, the corporeal and popular sporting facets of the nahda remain
underexamined.9 The writings of sports enthusiasts in al-Abtal and other
publications unequivocally establish that they were witnessing and contrib-
uting to the formation of a sports nahda. Across the region, sports enthusi-
asts persuasively proclaimed that physical exercise, gymnastics, and team
sports, namely football, were educational and leisure activities that young
men—and, increasingly during the 1920s and 1930s, women—needed to be
exposed to in order to become healthy, moral, and modern citizens. How
might the inclusion of this discursive framing in consideration of the
nahda—of the relationship between sports, the body, the self, and com-
munity—augur new lines of inquiry? Did the spread of sports clubs, publi-
cations, and venues across the broader Middle East expand the geography of
the nahda? Does the intellectual and ethnoreligious diversity of the actors
and institutions that indelibly shaped the spread of sports reveal an even
more capacious cultural nahda than originally envisioned?
This chapter’s approach to the sports nahda builds on an exciting body of
literature on sports in the Middle East. Over the past decade, scholars from a
diverse array of academic stripes, non-professional academics, journalists, and
museum directors have deployed different methodological approaches to
examine sports and physical culture throughout the Middle East. However,
they published manuscripts, edited volumes, and articles; organized confer-
ences, workshops, and panels; and curated exhibitions at museums that largely
focus on sports either in a specific nation-state, mainly Egypt, Iran, Israel,

13
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Palestine, and Turkey,10 or in a region within the Middle East, particularly

the Arab world.11 This chapter builds on this important body of literature by
exploring sports across the region.12 It examines the discursive and material
transformations that shaped the emergence, vernacularization, and spread of
sports during the late nineteenth century until the interwar period in the
Middle East. More specifically, it examines how people, from Istanbul to
Jerusalem, Cairo to Beirut, and Baghdad to Tehran, performed gymnastics in
schools, played team sports for athletic clubs, cheered for their favorite team
in the stands, and read (or listened to people read aloud) descriptions of the
latest matches and the importance of regular exercise in periodicals.13
Drawing from a diverse array of primary sources, such as newspapers, maga-
zines, memoirs, diaries, government and school reports, western travel litera-
ture, as well as photographs, and secondary literature, this chapter maps the
ideas, practices, and institutions that constituted the sports nahda in the
modern Middle East.

Educating the Body and Having Fun: Physical Exercise and Sports
in Clubs and Schools

Throughout the mid- to late nineteenth century, educators, doctors, govern-

ment officials, and ordinary people across the globe started to look to physical
exercise and team sports as both a panacea for society’s perceived ills and a fun
pastime. In a speech at Harvard, in 1893, Francis Walker, president of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), praised the ability of physical
exercise and team sports to cultivate ‘courage, steadiness of nerve … resource-
fulness, self-knowledge, self-reliance … the ability to work with others … readi-
ness to subordinate selfish impulses, personal desires, and individual credit to
a common end.’14 The modern assumptions undergirding this discursive fram-
ing about reforming the body and the physical activities through which people
disciplined and trained their bodies gradually spread throughout urban cent-
ers of the Middle East. Foreigners, in general, and Europeans and Americans,
more specifically, played an integral role in the spread of the ideas, practices,
personnel, and objects of the sports nahda.
Sports clubs and schools served as two of the main organizations in urban
centers of the Middle East through and in which people encountered team
sports and exercise as both an educational and leisure activity. By no means
did foreigners exclusively establish and serve as the administrators of schools
and sports clubs; denizens of urban centers throughout the region also estab-

14
 MAPPING THE ‘SPORTS NAHDA’

lished, joined, and administered clubs and schools. Nevertheless, foreigners

played an instrumental role in the introduction of sports in these spaces.
The presence of foreigners in Alexandria, Beirut, Cairo, Istanbul, and
Tehran, as well as other cities around the region, was inextricably connected
to the integration of Khedival Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, and Qajar Iran
into the global economy and the modern nation-state system.15 In particular,
three transformations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries made
this possible: capitulations, imperialism, and increased western competition
throughout the region. Together, these transformations and their attendant
political, social, economic, and cultural rearrangements facilitated the spread
of Europeans living in urban centers of the Middle East.
These foreign passport holders played a significantly large role in the crea-
tion of football teams and sports clubs in the Middle East. Foreign merchants,
educators, as well as military and bureaucratic personnel envisioned sports
clubs as spaces in which they could organize and spend their leisure time.
Members of these clubs played a number of physical activities, such as football,
cricket, and polo. However, football developed into the most popular and
widespread of the team sports.
Across the region, foreign men from different professional backgrounds
joined these clubs and played sports. In the Ottoman Empire, visiting British
sailors and entrepreneurs living in Istanbul created football teams during the
late nineteenth century.16 In Egypt, British military personnel and officials
organized football matches in Cairo and Alexandria during the British occu-
pation of Egypt (1882–1923).17 In Iran, British officers, employees of the
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, educators, as well as missionaries played an
integral role in the introduction of football throughout the country.18
Many of these clubs embraced an elite foreign identity by restricting mem-
bership to foreigners. Clubs in Alexandria and Cairo, for example, catered to
the British community that increased dramatically after the military occupa-
tion of Egypt in 1882. According to western guidebooks, by 1897, Alexandria
and Cairo each had four foreign sports clubs.19 These clubs offered the British
community of both cities an elite homogenous space where they could assert
and perform their foreignness while socializing and playing sports, such as
lawn tennis, cricket, golf, and polo.20 The Gezira Sporting Club in particular
was popular among British officers stationed in Cairo. The club was estab-
lished in 1886 in order to provide a space for British officers to exercise and
play sports. According to historian Lanver Mak, British civilians were also
allowed to become members of the club ‘“by courtesy” of the military.’21

15
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Despite its initial exclusion of Egyptians, the Gezira Sporting Club gradually
allowed a coterie of elite Egyptians to become members. Mixed clubs gradu-
ally started to emerge in other cities in the Middle East. In 1911, for example,
foreign European and local Arab residents of Jaffa created the Circle Sportive
(al-Muntada al-Riyadi).22
Within ten to twenty years, ‘locals’ also established their own sports clubs
in urban centers of the Middle East. In cities across the region, such as
Alexandria, Ankara, Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Damascus, Ismailia, Istanbul,
Izmir, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Port Said, and Tanta, elite and middle-class young men
created and became members of sports clubs. The spread of these clubs reflects
the growing popularity of sports as well as the emergence of a new type of civic
organization: the voluntary association.
Across the region, residents of cities created a diverse array of voluntary
associations, such as literary, political, religious, scientific, as well as sporting.
Their emergence coincided with the spread of the idea that men and women
from an expanding middle class needed to fill their ‘free time’ with beneficial
activities. Reformers writing in a variety of languages argued that it was a
moral imperative for people to create and join spaces that were committed to
improving their minds and bodies. For example, al-Hilal (the crescent), one
of Cairo’s leading Arabic magazines, offered readers updates on the formation
of clubs. In 1894, al-Hilal’s section on ‘Egyptian events’ informed readers of a
‘new club’ (nadi jadid) that ‘a group of Cairo’s notables’ (ayan al-Qahira)
created.23 According to the publication, the club provided this group with a
space in which they could engage in the pursuit of beneficial activities during
their ‘free time (awqat al-faragh), instead of wasting it in places of amusement
(amakin al-lahw).’24 Other early twentieth-century publications, such as
Muhammad Umar’s book The Present State of the Egyptians, or, the Cause of
their Retrogression (Hadir al-misriyyin aw sir ta’akhkhurihim), argued that
sports clubs and physical exercise were central needs of Egypt’s expanding
middle stratum.25
The idea that young men needed to regularly exercise and play sports was
not confined to sports clubs. For example, during the early twentieth century,
lectures organized at Jerusalem’s Flourishing Literature Association ( Jam‘iyat
al-adab al-zahra) also discussed sports. Khalil al-Sakakini, a leading educator
in Palestine during the late Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate, wrote
about the importance of physical exercise for Jerusalem’s youth at the associa-
tion. ‘Athletic fields’ (sahat al-le‘b), according to al-Sakakini, served as the
space where youth strengthened different parts of the body, developed ‘cour-

16
 MAPPING THE ‘SPORTS NAHDA’

age and resolve’, cultivated ‘the love of struggle and competition’, and sharp-
ened their ‘intellect.’26 In short, athletic fields were the training grounds of
new Arab men.
These ideas were not confined to the walls of Jerusalem’s Flourishing
Literature Association. During the first three decades of the twentieth cen-
tury, a number of local upper- and middle-class men from a diverse array of
ethnic and religious backgrounds established and joined athletic clubs
throughout the region.27 They joined these clubs for a whole host of reasons.
Playing team sports and engaging in physical exercise were definitely motivat-
ing factors; however, elite and upwardly mobile young men also joined them
in order to socialize and to be part of a broader fraternity of young men.
These clubs shared a number of characteristics: first, they were organized
around a shared activity or activities, the most popular were gymnastics and
football; second, these clubs tended to be ethnically and/or religiously
homogenous. Predominantly Arab, Armenian, Greek, Greek Orthodox,
Jewish, as well as Muslim clubs popped up in cities across the region. Their
efflorescence reveals the growing popularity of sports and an emerging leisure
market in urban centers. In other words, clubs were not only competing on the
pitch, they were also competing for the bodies of young men.
Predominantly Jewish clubs mushroomed throughout the Middle East.
During the first three decades of the twentieth century, Jewish denizens of
various different urban centers grew increasingly interested in playing sports,
exercising, and becoming members of a sports club. These athletic clubs
played an instrumental role in both responding to and cultivating this inter-
est in cities such as Aleppo, Alexandria, Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Damascus,
Istanbul, Jerusalem, Salonica, and Tehran.28 Maccabi clubs were the most
prominent Jewish sports organizations.29 Like other sports organizations,
many of the Maccabi clubs offered their members more than a space to exer-
cise. For example, the Maccabi Jewish Sports and Literary Union of
Alexandria (Union Juive Sportive et Litteraire Macchabée) regularly organ-
ized sporting competitions as well as conferences on ‘Jewish, literary, historic,
and scientific subjects.’30
While many of these clubs embraced and projected a shared ethnic and/or
religious identity, there were also instances in which young men became mem-
bers of a club that was not connected to their ethnic or religious community.
For example, Muhammad Hassan was a member of the Greek Club of Port
Said (al-Nadi al-Yunani Por Said). As his name suggests, Muhammad was a
Muslim living in Port Said. Nevertheless, as a young man who was interested

17
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

in bodybuilding and physical exercise, Muhammad seems to have maintained

no qualms about joining a voluntary association that maintained a conspicu-
ous Greek appellation.31
Other organizations established around an exclusive ethnoreligious identity
also attracted young men from different communal backgrounds. For exam-
ple, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) was a Protestant organi-
zation committed to recruiting Christians, Muslims, and Jews alike. Founded
in urban centers throughout the region during the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, the YMCA provided spaces for members to read, take
classes, exercise, and play sports.32 In the aftermath of the First World War,
YMCA administrators made a concerted effort to make team sports and gym-
nastics integral components of the organization’s activities across the region.
Young men exercising, competing, and socializing in ethnically and reli-
giously mixed spaces troubled some educators. A group of Muslim educators
and reformers in Cairo were particularly critical of the YMCA’s activities.
The presence of Muslim members in the YMCA infuriated Muslim reform-
ers, who viewed the organization as a Christian missionary one. It is in this
context that the Young Men’s Muslim Association (YMMA, in Arabic
Jam‘iyat al-Shuban al-Muslimin) was formed in Cairo in 1927.33 Established
in response to the YMCA, the YMMA looked to the organization as both a
competitor and model, incorporating a number of athletic, cultural, social,
as well as religious activities. The YMMA was not limited to Cairo; during
the 1920s, the organization opened branches in other cities in Egypt as well
as in Palestine.34 Like other clubs during the twentieth century, the YMMA
turned to photographs as a means to record and share its associational iden-
tity. Figure 2 is an example of the group photographs that members and
administrators of the YMMA posed for. The image captures the YMMA’s
wrestling team posing in athletic attire. The YMMA shared the group por-
trait with al-Abtal, which subsequently published the image.
By the 1920s and 1930s, sports clubs became a regular fixture of urban
centers in the Middle East. The efflorescence of these institutions also resulted
in greater diversity. For example, football clubs in Turkey were divided
between large and small. Large clubs were members of larger sports federa-
tions, had multiple sports branches, and had better amenities, such as fields,
courts, gymnasiums, and equipment. Smaller clubs made up the vast majority
of sporting organizations in Turkey during the first three decades of the twen-
tieth century. They tended to be largely independent of larger federations and
connected to a local neighborhood.

18
 MAPPING THE ‘SPORTS NAHDA’

Figure 2: The wrestling team of the Young Men’s Muslim Association ( Jam‘iyat al-
Shubban al-Muslimin), al-Abtal.
Source: Al-Abtal, March 11, 1933, p. 22.

Sports clubs were not the only spaces in which ordinary people of the
Middle East played sports and trained their bodies; young men—and, to a
lesser extent, women—also played team sports and exercised in primary and
secondary schools and colleges. Starting in the nineteenth century, educators
in the Middle East started to envision sports as a means to create strong,
healthy, and moral youth. As a result, they gradually integrated physical exer-
cise into the daily lives of students in government, private minority, and for-
eign schools alike. Government schools in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt
gradually integrated physical education into their curriculum during the late
nineteenth century.35 This development led to educators penning works in
Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Ladino, Ottoman Turkish, and Persian about edu-
cation that included discussions about physical exercise.36
The integration of physical education in government schools did not take
place at the same time across the region. For example, educators in Iran started
to integrate physical exercise into government school curricula after the First

19
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

World War.37 The 1920s and 1930s, in particular, were important decades for
the integration and spread of physical education courses as well as team sports
in government schools. According to Issa Khan Sadiq, an Iranian who com-
pleted his PhD at Columbia University in 1931 and served as minister of
education in Iran, after a school was established in order to teach physical
education in 1925, ‘a law was passed requiring daily physical exercise in all
schools, at first in the larger cities, and gradually, within three years, in all parts
of the country.’38
Physical exercise and sports were not limited to government schools.
Jerusalem’s Constitutional School (al-Madrasa al-Dusturiyya) also introduced
students to the importance of exercising their bodies. Khalil al-Sakakini estab-
lished a private school in 1909, envisioning the institution as a trendsetter in
its approach to education.39 The Constitutional School accepted students
from different religions and confessions, banned corporeal punishment, and
introduced a number of pedagogical innovations, including stressing the
importance of ‘sports’ (al-al‘ab al-riyada) and ‘military exercises’ (al-harakat
al-‘askariyya).40 Wasif Jawhariyyeh, who studied at the school during the early
twentieth century, highlights the importance the school placed on the body
and physical exercise. During the early twentieth century, an instructor from
Lebanon taught the students sports the ‘French military way’ (‘askariyya
Fransiyya).41 In addition to stressing the salubrious benefits of exercise, al-
Sakakini also encouraged students to eat well by regularly consuming meat,
especially chicken. Together, the emphasis placed on exercise and diet, accord-
ing to Jawhariyyeh, exposed students to the maxim: ‘a sound mind [lives] in a
sound body’ (al-‘aql al-sahih fil jism al-sahih).42 This idea was not confined to
the walls of the Constitutional School. Educators across the region and
beyond, writing and teaching in a variety of languages, such as Arabic,
Armenian, English, French, German, Hebrew, Ladino, Persian, and Turkish,
institutionalized this modern reading of the interconnection between the
body and the mind, and looked to sports as the most effective tool to develop
a healthy body.43
Foreign missionary schools, in particular, served as some of the first spaces
where people played team sports, exercised, and participated in athletic com-
petitions. Administrators at American schools, such as the American
University in Cairo (AUC), the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut (later the
American University of Beirut), Robert College in Istanbul, the St Paul
Institute in Tarsus, Anatolia College in Marsovan, Central College at Aintab,
Alborz College in Tehran, and the English Church Missionary College in

20
 MAPPING THE ‘SPORTS NAHDA’

Isfahan treated physical exercise and team sports as necessary components of

a modern education.
American missionary schools were not the only institutions that valorized
physical exercise. Jewish educational organizations spread across the Middle
East also gradually integrated physical education into their curriculum. One
of the most prominent and widespread was the Alliance Israélite Universelle
(AIU). Operated as a French Jewish organization, the AIU created schools for
boys and girls in cities throughout North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, and
Iran.44 The AIU’s Central Committee considered gymnastics an effective
means of modernizing Jews in ‘the countries of the East or Africa’ (les pays
d’Orient ou d’Afrique),45 or more specifically, that physical exercise helped
strengthen the bodies and minds of Jewish youth.46
Educators in government, private, and foreign missionary schools, alike,
viewed exercise as a necessary component of primary and secondary schools
as well as colleges; however, American schools in particular played a leading
role in institutionalizing team sports, such as football, basketball, and baseball,
during the early twentieth century. Gymnastics and exercise enabled students
to develop their bodies; however, team sports served as activities through
which young men of different ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic back-
grounds built bonds and developed a commitment to fair play, selflessness,
honesty, and camaraderie.47
American colleges offered a number of amenities for students to exercise.
Together, gymnasiums, athletic fields, and basketball and tennis courts ena-
bled students to play team sports and exercise year-round. The American
University of Beirut (AUB), for example, maintained a ‘modern athletic field’,
which the college’s administrators envisioned serving ‘the purpose of an out-
of-doors gymnasium.’48 Many of the colleges also had indoor gymnasiums and
outside gymnastics equipment. For example, both administrators at Robert
College and Anatolia College built indoor gymnasiums. Robert College’s
gymnasium, Dodge gymnasium, maintained an indoor track, a complete set
of gymnastic equipment, as well as a basketball court.
In many American colleges across the region, administrators often
stressed the benefits of team sports. For example, Howard Bliss, president of
the Syrian Protestant College, looked to ‘foot-ball’ as a team sport that ena-
bled students to develop a number of noble qualities.49 This sport, according
to Bliss, ‘develops the ability to receive a hard blow without showing the
white feather or drawing a dagger. This means that when the men get out of
the college they will stand upon their feet as men.’50 In addition to cultivat-

21
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

ing these characteristics, the game also had the potential to bring together
students from different socioeconomic classes. At the Syrian Protestant
College, according to Bliss, the son of a prince and cook not only played
together, the cook’s son even served as the captain of the team.51 In the
1930s, the English Missionary College in Isfahan also introduced football
to its students.52 In short, football was one of the most popular sports on
campuses around the region.
Although educators at different American colleges highlighted the impor-
tance of football among students, college athletic departments also intro-
duced a number of other team sports. Educators at the AUC introduced
basketball to its students. By 1927, basketball, according to the school’s
newspaper, The A.U.C. Review, had become the ‘favorite sport’ at the AUC.53
While the university’s basketball team struggled to find another team to play
against during the early 1920s, by 1925, a number of teams were formed in
Cairo and Alexandria, such as the Lycée Français of Alexandria, Secondary
Training College, Tawfiq Coptic, Training College, the College AUC
Faculty, Assiut College, YMCA, and the Armenian National School.54
AUC’s basketball team did not only compete against teams in Cairo and
Alexandria, but also played games against the American University of
Beirut,55 whose basketball team was highly competitive.56

Let’s Talk about Sports: Exercise and Team Sports in the Press

Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, sports enthusiasts

penned articles in newspapers and magazines and authored pamphlets and
books that contributed to localizing the practices and ideas espoused in
schools and sports clubs. These writings shaped the discursive contours of the
sports nahda. For example, starting in the 1890s, Cairo’s Arabic press started
to feature irregular articles on sports clubs, sports, and physical exercise.
Al-Hilal featured these discussions in different sections of the publication,
such as ‘Question and Suggestion’ (bab al-su’al wa al-iqtira) and ‘Scientific
News’ (bab al-akhbar al-‘ilmiyya). Together, they reveal a growing interest in
physical exercise and sports.
There was also a concerted effort to frame these activities as indigenous
to the region. For example, Doctor ‘Abd al-Aziz ‘Abd al-Mowjud’s article
‘Physical Exercise among the Ancient Egyptians’ (al-riyada al-badaniyya
‘and al-masriyyin al-qudama) offered illustrations of, and a discussion
about, ancient Egyptians wrestling and playing a ‘foot game’ (le‘b al-kura).57

22
 MAPPING THE ‘SPORTS NAHDA’

Figure 3: Basketball game at the American University at Cairo’s Field Day, AUC
Archive.
Source: American University of Cairo Archive, Box 5, Athletics and sport—1920s
–1980s—Sports day.

The article is significant because it presented a long history of physical exer-

cise among the Egyptians. In doing so, the author conveyed the idea that at
the height of their greatness, Egyptians were exercising their bodies. In
short, sports were an Egyptian tradition. Whether or not this is historically
‘accurate’ is irrelevant. What is significant is the modern way in which the
author marshalled historical facts about physical culture in ancient Egypt
and deployed fundamentally novel assumptions about the body, nation, and
historical continuity. Egyptians, according to the author, exercised and
played sports before Westerners popularized team sports and gymnastics
during the nineteenth century.
Illustrated magazines focused exclusively on sports and physical culture
emerged throughout the Middle East during the first three decades of the
twentieth century. Journals such as al-Abtal (the champions), al-Medmar (the
track), and al-Al‘ab al-Riyadiyya (sports) in Cairo, Keihan-e varzeshi (world
of sports) in Tehran, and Spor Alemi (the world of sports), Türkiye İdman
Mecmuası (Turkey’s sports magazine), Şa Şa Şa (hooray), and Marmnamarz

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Figure 4: The ‘physical training’ section of al-Abtal.

Source: ‘al-Tarbiyya al-Badaniyya,’ al-Abtal, February 4, 1933, p. 10.

(physical training) in Istanbul, provided readers with an abundance of infor-

mation about sports.58 The founders, editors, and authors of these publica-
tions drew insights, both in terms of content and format, from physical
cultural magazines published in the United States and Europe during the
period. Nevertheless, by selectively running similar sections and translations
of articles, they also localized the debates and discussions that sports enthusi-
asts were having in the west. In short, Arabic, Armenian, Persian, and Turkish
sports magazines simultaneously reflected the growing spread of discussions
about sports in the west and the growing demand for information about
sports in a local idiom.
These publications, as well as leading weekly magazines that ran sporting
editions,59 provided the space needed for thinkers to establish the discursive
boundaries of these novel physical activities in the region’s press.60 According

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 MAPPING THE ‘SPORTS NAHDA’

to historian Wilson Jacob, nineteenth-century writers in Egypt reconfigured

the Islamic concept of riyadat al-nafs (caring for the soul) and redeployed it
as al-riyada (sports).61 Al-riyada consisted of a diverse range of physical activi-
ties, such as team sports, physical education, and gymnastics. Educators writ-
ing in Ottoman-Turkish, Persian, and Armenian also refashioned terms and/
or developed neologisms to describe new practices. Ottomans writing in
Ottoman-Turkish deployed the terms ‘idman’ and ‘spor’ to mean sports, and
the terms ‘terbiye-i bedeniye’ and ‘riyazet-i bedeniye’ to mean physical educa-
tion. In Persian, people deployed ‘varzesh’ for sports and physical exercise, and
‘tarbiyat-e badani’ for physical education.62 Iranian educators often used tar-
biyat-e badani in a more specific context of the school system, while varzesh
was used as a comprehensive term. In short, people writing in a variety of
languages treated physical education, both institutionally and discursively, as
part of a broader category of sports.
These discussions presented novices and experts, sports enthusiasts and
skeptics, with a diverse array of content. Articles in sports magazines focused
on particular team sports—mostly, but not exclusively, football—physical
exercise, and scouting, as well as on bodily care. Magazines often ran articles
describing how to play sports. For example, Spor Alemi’s first edition featured
a two-page article titled ‘How Do We Play Football?’ (Nasıl Futbol
Oynuyoruz?).63 In addition to team sports, many magazines also featured regu-
lar sections on how to perform physical exercise and calisthenics. A section in
al-Abtal titled ‘Physical Exercise’ (al-tarbiyya al-badaniyya) stressed the
importance of regular exercise: ‘spending ten minutes a day doing physical
exercises is enough to keep your body in a good state (hala jayida) of health,
strength, and activity.’ 64 These textual and visual guides offered detailed
instructions for the reader, especially the novice, to follow.
Publications also offered impassioned editorials that stressed the moral
benefits of physical exercise. According to al-Abtal, ‘the majority of Egyptians
still believe that physical exercise is a bunch of deviance and nonsense, and
that the good sportsman does not have any special qualities besides the growth
of his body and the prominence of his muscles.’ 65 The editorial argues that in
addition to molding bodies, physical exercise also shaped the defining con-
tours of a person’s morality. This gendered athlete, irrespective of whether he
was a football player, wrestler, gymnast, boxer, or swimmer, developed praise-
worthy characteristics, such as bravery, discipline, endurance, and a commit-
ment to the ‘spirit of collaboration’ and ‘brotherhood’ that made him the ideal
man. In addition to cultivating these positive traits, ‘the correct sportsman’

25
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

(al-riyadi al-sahih) developed the discipline to stay away from three of the
most significant vices that ostensibly damaged the moral fiber of people: ‘alco-
hol, smoking and staying out late.’ 66 In short, sports facilitated the creation of
a modern, moral, and healthy generation of men.67
Sports publications also created a strong discursive connection between
sports ‘abroad’ and ‘home.’ Spor Alemi, for example, accomplished this by
running sections entitled ‘the world of sports in Turkish regions’ (Türk
diyarında spor alemi), ‘the world of sports’ local news’ (spor aleminin dahili
havadisleri), and ‘news of the west’ (garp haberleri).68 These sections included
both the results and short descriptions of football, hockey, and boxing
matches. Sports magazines also featured photographs of local and foreign
athletes on the cover, and published regular spreads dedicated to discussing
the feats of these modern, healthy athletes, the sports they played, and the
teams for which they competed. In doing so, magazines like al-Abtal created
a pantheon of moral athletic ‘heroes’ (abtal) at home and abroad. Over the
next few decades, books were also published on these heroes, extolling their
athletic feats.

Figure 5: Anwar Ahmad on the cover of al-Abtal.

Source: al-Abtal, February 25, 1933.

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 MAPPING THE ‘SPORTS NAHDA’

Figure 6: Egypt’s early-twentieth-century football star Hussein Higazi.

Source: Al-Sayid Faraj, Kabtin Masr: Hussein Higazi (Cairo: al-Majlis al-A‘la li-Ri‘ayat
al-Shabab, 1961).

The press also served as the leading instrument through which educators
stressed the importance of women’s exercise. Such calls date back to the late
nineteenth century, when women’s magazines published caricatures of women
performing gymnastics.69 During the 1920s and 1930s, however, this irregular
coverage significantly expanded, both in quality and quantity. The press textu-
ally and visually celebrated young women’s performance of physical exercise
and, to a lesser degree, team sports. Sports and cultural magazines regularly
ran articles that examined the important athletic and educational achieve-
ments of young women, developments in the institutionalization of sports in
girls’ schools, as well as why and how girls, young women, and older women
should exercise. For example, Spor Alemi ran a lengthy article that textually
and visually highlighted the importance of sports in the Istanbul Girls’ High
School (İstanbul Kız Lisesi).70 The article featured images of female students
playing basketball and volleyball (Figure 7).
While both men and women were increasingly encouraged to play sports,
some sports enthusiasts also contributed to a gendering of sports by highlight-
ing the idea that certain athletic activities were more appropriate for women.71

27
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Tennis, according to a doctor writing in al-Muqtataf (the collection), one of

Cairo’s leading journals, was not suitable for women. ‘The violent game’ was
considered dangerous for women, but not men, because it created a dispropor-
tionate physique.72 During the 1920s and 1930s, Iran’s press also expressed a
gendered reading of sports. According to historian Mikiya Koyagi, Tehran’s
press argued that swimming and dancing and, to a lesser extent, volleyball and
skiing were more appropriate physical activities for women because they main-
tained weaker bodies than men.73 Publications like Ta‘lim va Tarbiyat
(instruction and education) highlighted the different benefits that physical
exercise offered boys and girls: exercise prepared girls for housework, while it
prepared boys for the military and work outside of the house.74
Sports enthusiasts founded, edited, and contributed to these magazines.
The magazines were anchored in the debates and discussions surrounding
sports, athletics, and physical exercise of the cities in which they were pro-
duced. Nevertheless, the content of the magazines also resonated with a grow-
ing Arabic, Armenian, Persian, and Turkish reading public throughout the

Figure 7: Full two-page article in Spor Alemi (The World of Sports) about the institu-
tionalization of sports in the Istanbul Girls’ High School.
Source: ‘İstanbul Kız Lisesi’nde Spor,’ Spor Alemi, March 3, 1926, pp. 10 –11.

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 MAPPING THE ‘SPORTS NAHDA’

Middle East. As a result, these magazines circulated beyond the city and
country in which they were produced. For example, a growing Arabic reader-
ship read the Cairene al-Abtal in other cities in Egypt, such as Alexandria,
Port Said, and Tanta, as well as outside of Egypt, in Baghdad, Beirut, and
Damascus. Historian Stacey Fahrenthold demonstrates that intellectuals and
educators writing in the Syrian mahjar (diaspora) were also active contribu-
tors to a transnational discussion in Arabic about sports.75 Jurj Atlas’ Arabic
literary magazine al-Karma (the vineyard), which was published in São Paulo,
Brazil, included discussions about the moral benefits of physical exercise and
team sports.76
Other magazines reveal the transnational dissemination of these ideas
throughout the Middle East. For example, al-Abtal published a section that
featured photographs of young athletes sent to the journal by readers from
different parts of Egypt and other cities in the region.77 According to the
section, ‘on this page, we are printing some photos of novices in Egypt and
other places from “sister regions” (al-aqtar al-shaqiqa), to encourage and pro-
mote their development and brilliance.’78 Figure 8 depicts one of the regular
sections that al-Abtal published of these neophyte athletes. The section fea-
tures photographs of young men with contorted and well-defined bodies,
posing in athletic attire, as well as captions describing who they are, what
physical activities they regularly perform, and where they are from. For exam-
ple, according to the section titled ‘Min Damashq’ (from Damascus), ‘Abbas
and Baha’ al-Din, who were interested in wrestling and boxing, respectively,
were among Damascus’s most brilliant ‘young athletes.’79
These photographs and descriptions are significant for three reasons. First,
they reveal a growing Arabic reading public throughout the Middle East read
the magazine. In other words, the magazine circulated among sports enthusiasts
in urban centers of the region. Second, by sharing images and short biographies
with al-Abtal, young men like ‘Abbas and Baha’ al-Din from Damascus,
Muhammad Bakkar from Beirut, and Rasheed Hasan and ‘Abd al-Sattar ‘Abd
al-Latif from Iraq actively shaped the content of the magazine.80 As a result, the
magazine cultivated a transnational Arab identity. Third, these vernacular pho-
tographs firmly established the widespread dissemination of sports photography
throughout urban centers of the Middle East during the early twentieth cen-
tury.81 Young men from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria had their photographs
taken dressed in tightfitting athletic attire, while they flexed their muscles and
contorted their bodies. These images served as tokens of friendship and ‘gifts’
that young men shared with friends, colleagues, as well as the press. Many of

29
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Figure 8: Photos of athletes from Egypt and ‘sister regions’ (al-aqtar al-shaqiqa),
al-Abtal.
Source: Al-Abtal, January 28, 1933, p. 20.

these images, like the photograph of al-Sayid ‘Abd al-Wahed (Figure 9), were
signed and addressed to the recipient.
Illustrated sports magazines were not the only publications that provided
the region’s growing reading public with information about sports; daily news-
papers also offered an abundance of information about the importance of
physical exercise and team sports, and provided readers with regular coverage
of football matches. Daily newspapers had a significantly larger circulation
than illustrated physical culture journals. As a result, these publications prob-
ably played a more significant role in spreading and popularizing discussions
about sports throughout the region. During the first four decades of the twen-
tieth century, articles in Arabic, Armenian, English, French, Greek, Hebrew,
Ladino, Persian, and Turkish were published about team sports and athletics;

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 MAPPING THE ‘SPORTS NAHDA’

Figure 9: Signed photograph of al-Sayid ‘Abd al-Wahed that he gifted to al-Abtal.

Source: Al-Abtal, February 11, 1933, p. 18.

many of these publications also created regular sports columns. The develop-
ment of these discussions in popular newspapers, such as al-Nahar (the day)
in Beirut,82 al-Ahram (the pyramids) in Cairo,83 al-Qabas (the firebrand) in
Damascus,84 Cumhuriyet (the republic) and Takhidromos (postman) in
Istanbul,85 Filastin (Palestine) in Jaffa,86 and Etilla‘at (information) in
Tehran,87 ensured that sports was considered part of daily news. English and
French newspapers, like The Egyptian Gazette in Alexandria and L’Orient (the
Orient) and Le Jour (the day) in Beirut, provided sports coverage to many of
the foreign passport holders in the Middle East during the transition from
empire to nation-state and the mandate system. It is safe to assume that when
people of the region sat down in a coffee shop either to read or listen to some-
one read the daily news,88 they would have encountered discussions about
team sports, gymnastics, and exercise.
This coverage exposed readers to the outcome of local, regional, and inter-
national matches. The Egyptian Gazette, for example, provided coverage of the
various football tournaments organized in Cairo and Alexandria as well as a
‘football calendar’ for readers to follow.89 Newspaper columns often described
the performance of teams in local, regional, and international competitions as
indicators of the nation’s development and progress. However, international

31
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

matches between national teams, namely football, were particularly loaded

with symbolic meaning.90
In addition to coverage of sports in newspapers and magazines, advertise-
ments from the press during the first three decades of the twentieth century
also reveal the growing popularity of sports. It was during this period that
department stores started carrying athletic apparel, and sporting goods shops
opened across the region.91 For example, Istanbul’s ‘sporting store’ (sporting
mağazası) regularly ran ads in the sporting press of the city, informing readers
that the store offered ‘football, tennis, golf, hockey, cricket, baseball, boxing,
basketball, volleyball, and scouting apparel.’92 The New London House in
Cairo also carried a diverse array of goods.93 The store’s impressive selection of
athletic apparel included ‘football shoes, boxing gloves, tennis rackets, sport
shirts, sweaters, trunks, traveling bags, boy scouts equipment, as well as hats.’ 94
According to one advertisement, the store’s inexpensive selection attracted
students and sports aficionados alike.95 Together, these and other advertise-
ments reveal the expansion of a sports market that offered consumers sports

Figure 10: Advertisement for Istanbul’s ‘sporting mağazası’ (sporting store), Spor
Alemi.
Source: Spor Alemi, April 19, 1922, p. 10.

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 MAPPING THE ‘SPORTS NAHDA’

apparel that could be used for both educational and leisure activities in cities
across the Middle East.

Matches and Sporting Events

During the first three decades of the twentieth century, sporting events served
as popular forms of entertainment and educational displays. Football matches,
athletic competitions, and gymnastics exhibitions played an integral role in
the spread and popularization of the sports nahda. These events were organ-
ized in a variety of spaces. Formal and informal matches were played in open
fields, on the grounds of sports clubs, as well as in stadiums. Stadiums and
open fields provided football fans, sports enthusiasts, and the casual observer
with outdoor venues where they could socialize and watch clubs compete and
young athletes display their athletic acumen. These spaces differed, however.
For example, some of the earliest football matches in Jerusalem were organ-
ized in a makeshift field in the Palestinian quarter of Herod’s Gate (Bab al-
Sbat).96 The growing popularity of sporting events in Istanbul encouraged
denizens of the city to build multiple venues across the city.97 In other cities,
football matches were often played on club grounds. For example, in Cairo
and Damascus, matches were played in the Ahli Sporting Club’s stadium and
the Mu‘awiyya Club’s stadium, respectively.98
Matches, leagues, tournaments, and cups played an important role in popu-
larizing football. For example, the creation of the Sultan’s Cup in Egypt
marked a watershed moment in the institutionalization and vernacularization
of football in colonial Egypt.99 The Sultan’s Cup served as the first nationwide
football championship in Egypt. Both the timing and founders of the cham-
pionship are significant. The Mixed Sporting Association in Alexandria
formed the championship during the First World War in 1916. Because the
Mixed Sporting Association exclusively consisted of foreign personnel, a num-
ber of Egyptian football clubs refused to participate in the competition. The
boycott seemed to have an effect on the association, because the Mixed
Sporting Association decided to allow three Egyptians to serve on its commit-
tee. In response, the Egyptian teams leading the boycott participated in the
championship in 1917. Together, the inclusion of Egyptian personnel in the
Mixed Sporting Association and the participation of Egyptian teams in the
national championship resulted in people showing up for matches. Coverage
of the Sultan’s Cup in The Egyptian Gazette, for example, regularly praised the
sizeable number of football fans at the matches.

33
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The spread and localization of football through the construction of clubs,

the organization of matches and tournaments, and the regular coverage of
such matches in the daily press made football an immensely popular pastime
for people of the region. According to The Egyptian Gazette, by 1918, ‘foot-
ball serve[d] to be the principle attraction for all lovers of sport.’100 Cairo was
not the only city that experienced football fever. Residents in Baghdad,
Damascus, Jerusalem, and Istanbul also regularly attended football matches.
By the 1920s, newspapers and magazines increasingly commented on the
development of a fan culture at football matches, more specifically, and sport-
ing events, more generally.
The growing popularity of sporting events as social spaces also served as a
source of concern. Commentators criticized both the ability of athletes and
spectators, or lack thereof, to maintain proper etiquette when playing or
watching a match. For example, a US report on the state of sports in the
Republic of Turkey during the 1930s describes football matches as events
where ‘feeling runs high’, ‘riots … develop’, and ‘players and spectators alike’
engage in ‘free-for-all fights.’101 The author of the report, Eugene M. Hinkle,
Third Secretary of the United States Embassy in Ankara, was particularly
concerned with the spectators at the match, which he referred to as ‘the
Turkish crowd.’ According to Hinkle, ‘in any match one has the feeling that
the crowd while listless has latent enormous unrestrained emotions which may
be unleashed at some unforeseen provocation.’102
Such descriptions were not unique to football in Turkey. The Egyptian
Gazette, for example, criticized what it regarded as the Egyptian Football
Association’s inability to foster a culture of sportsmanship and respect. The
association, according to an article published in 1925, did not have ‘the
slightest idea of control of players, clubs or spectators.’103 Events at a match
at the Prince Farouk Cup Final, which consisted of ‘fighting, arguing, and
foul play’, revealed that the Egyptian Football Association, ‘either individu-
ally or collectively’, did not have ‘the slightest intention of willingness of
“playing the game”.’104

Not Modern Enough? The Problem with Sports among the ‘Locals’

Westerners living in the Middle East often displayed a patronizing view of

football, specifically, and sports, more generally. These views were embedded
in a broader late-nineteenth-century colonial discourse that often claimed that
people of the region were both inherently different and in a transitional state

34
 MAPPING THE ‘SPORTS NAHDA’

in which they had neither properly modernized nor fully embraced the bless-
ings of western civilization.105 Newspaper articles written by foreigners living
in the region reveal both an appreciation for the development of football as
well as the inability of ‘locals’ to play, watch, and/or referee the sport like
Westerners. The Egyptian Gazette, for example, explicitly challenged Egyptians’
ability to serve as referees. In February 1924, the newspaper ran a series of
articles and letters about the dismal performance of an Egyptian referee at the
Prince Farouk Cup. According to one of the letters, ‘[a]s far as can be gathered
from reports regarding the referee in a recent match at Cairo, there does not
appear to be the least doubt that the referee was not only weak, but biased.’106
The anonymous writer suggested that in the future ‘an absolutely neutral ref-
eree’ should be appointed for such matches where ‘feeling … runs high.’107
More concerning to the author was the potential of Egyptians to tarnish the
name of football in Egypt: ‘one can see at no far distant date that football in
Egypt (the locals) will spoil the very name if the European element is not
allowed to have more power on the various committees.’108 In other words, the
author was worried about the ways in which ‘the locals’ would dilute the
European characteristics of honesty, sportsmanship, neutrality, and discipline
that ostensibly undergirded football.
According to this nineteenth-century colonial discourse, punctuality was also
a defining feature of the west, which the Egyptians failed to properly respect and
comprehend. The Egyptian Gazette ran articles admonishing Egyptians’ disre-
gard for punctuality on the pitch, noting that Egyptians’ ‘prevailing custom
these days’ of showing up late to matches ensured that the sporting events were
less exciting.109 On 1 March 1924, the newspaper ran such an article about a
delayed friendly match between Egyptian State Railways Institute (ESRI) and
Royal Air Force (RAF) at the Railways Ground.
The match having been arranged to begin at 3–15, a good number of spectators
were present, but they had to wait along with the visiting team who punted the
ball about the field until 3–30 when Hegazi lead [sic] out most of his men, the
others following like Mary’s little lamb.110
The fact that Hussein Higazi was leading the late team is significant. His
feats on the pitch in Egypt and England—serving as captain of the Egyptian
National Football team in the 1920 and 1928 Olympic Games and competing
on different football teams across Egypt—led many to deem Higazi one of the
most important Egyptian football players of his generation.111 The article
implied that even Egypt’s most respected player was unable to be punctual.112
Moreover, the article suggested that this indifference to punctuality on the

35
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

pitch stemmed from a more fundamental disregard for the importance of time
throughout Egypt, which it described as ‘the “maalesh” spirit’.113 Such indiffer-
ence to punctuality might be acceptable among Egyptians, but it would defi-
nitely not be tolerated in the west. This was particularly troubling to the
author of the article, given that the Egyptian National Football team was to
compete in the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris:114 ‘A little less of the “maalesh”
spirit will have to be shown by the Egyptians when they take part in the
Olympic Games, as punctuality is enforced rigidly.’115
The Turkish sports press was cognizant of such views. Spor Alemi even ran
satirical cartoons of stereotypical European views of Turks. A cartoon pub-
lished in February 1922 exemplifies this approach (Figure 11). The image
features a Turkish man dressed in a turban, sitting cross-legged on the ground,
and smoking a water pipe. While postcards and descriptions of traveling
throughout the empire and broader Middle East often featured images of
Turks smoking in cafes, this character is particularly novel: The ‘idle’ tobacco-
consuming Turk is dressed in athletic attire, shorts, jersey, and football cleats.
Together, the image and satirical caption, ‘Avrupalılar Türkleri Nasıl
Biliyorlar?’ (how do Europeans know Turks?), present a well-established
Orientalist trope and reveal its reconfiguration.116
Despite the implicit critique of this image, many sports enthusiasts, whose
writings and activities shaped the sports nahda, internalized the idea that
Westerners were ontologically more developed than they were. Writing in
Egypt during the early twentieth century, Muhammad ‘Umar, for example,
argued that Europeans were modern, developed, and successful in large part
because of their embrace of sports and physical exercise.117 Sporting columns
in Mandatory Palestine’s Arabic press stressed that Arabs were athletes in the
past; however, they had come to abandon physical exercise for a long period,
which had resulted in their perceived decline.118 In short, these and other
discussions reveal the ways in which contributors to the nahda simultaneously
accepted and challenged the idea that they were inherently less modern.

Conclusion

Can we talk about a shared history of sports in the Middle East? Tracing the
emergence and spread of team sports and physical exercise throughout urban
centers of the Middle East starting in the late nineteenth century until the
1930s, this chapter demonstrates that there were important shared discursive
and institutional features across the region. There were striking similarities in

36
 MAPPING THE ‘SPORTS NAHDA’

Figure 11: ‘How do Europeans know Turks?’, Spor Alemi.

Source: ‘Avrupalılar Türkleri Nasıl Biliyorlar?’ Spor Alemi, February 8, 1922, p. 2.

terms of the institutions and actors that popularized sports. Schools, sports
clubs, the press, public squares, and stadiums served as the main venues in
which, and through which, people institutionalized and popularized sports.
The activities of educators, government officials, sports club administrators,
students, club members, editors, and columnists in these spaces helped turn
sports into a regular fixture of the urban landscape of cities across the region.
People across the region displayed a similar reading of sports. Articles in the
press, school reports, and the experience of fans in the stands across the region
reveal that people envisioned and treated sports as a form of education and a
form of pleasure. Sports enthusiasts teaching in schools, working in sports
clubs, and penning articles in the press, certainly foregrounded the impor-
tance of sports as an educational activity that enabled young men and, increas-
ingly, young women to develop into ideal, modern citizens. However, their

37
 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

focus on the educational benefits, as well as their implicit and explicit critique
of sports as a form of leisure, also speaks volumes about the different ways in
which ordinary people took pleasure in watching a football match or athletic
competition, reading about it in the press, as well as arguing and fighting
about a goal with strangers and friends. Together, the institutional and discur-
sive arenas of sports reveal that people living in urban centers across the region
envisioned and experienced sports as a form of pleasure and discipline.
Despite these similarities, there were important differences that emerged
out of the intersection of space, people, time, and circumstance. The history
of sports, like other embodied forms of knowledge and practice, were inter-
woven with the social, cultural, and political history of cities, empires, and
new polities that emerged after the First World War. For example, sports clubs,
schools, and the press introduced physical exercise and team sports at different
moments throughout the region. Newspaper and magazine articles, govern-
ment and school reports, as well as diaries and memoirs reveal that residents
of Cairo, Istanbul, and Jerusalem encountered football, gymnastics, as well as
other team sports as early as the late nineteenth century. On the other hand,
with the exception of students at missionary schools, Iranians living in cities
across Iran had to wait until the 1920s and 1930s.
This chapter establishes that the sports nahda was a regional phenomenon.
However, additional research could offer important insights into the degree
to which particular cities emerged as regional sports hubs in the Middle East
during the first three decades of the twentieth century. In other words, did
sports aficionados across the region look to specific places for information
about sports and physical culture? Did exchanges of people, ideas, objects, and
practices take place in some cities more frequently than others? This chapter
suggests that by the 1920s and 1930s, Cairo, Istanbul, and Tehran served as,
what historian Ilham Khuri-Makdisi calls, nodal cities.119 This does not mean
that there was a dearth of sports clubs, football matches, and discussions about
physical exercise in cities like Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus, and Jerusalem;
nevertheless, a growing Arabic, Turkish, and Persian speaking and reading
public increasingly turned to these places for the latest trends in, and discus-
sions about, the world of sports.
The regional sports nahda also reveals the profound intellectual and eth-
noreligious diversity of the individuals and institutions that shaped the defin-
ing contours of sports throughout the Middle East. As a result, these
historical actors offer a unique window into the inclusivity of the cultural
nahda that engulfed the Middle East during the early twentieth century.

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 MAPPING THE ‘SPORTS NAHDA’

Much of the traditional literature focuses its analysis of the nahda as an Arab
awakening; however, the sports nahda demonstrates that it was inclusive of
Muslim wrestlers in the Young Men’s Muslim Association in Cairo, American
Protestant educators in Istanbul, Zionist sports clubs in Jerusalem, and foot-
ballers in Tehran.

39
 2

FOOTBALL’S ROLE IN HOW

SOCIETIES REMEMBER

THE SYMBOLIC WARS OF

JORDANIAN–PALESTINIAN FOOTBALL

Dag Tuastad

Introduction

My aim in this chapter is to demonstrate, using a case study from Jordan, how
the football arena constitutes a dominant stage for battles over national social
memories. Social memory, as Maurice Halbwachs argued, has two dimen-
sions.1 The first has to do with memorization as a cognitive process with a
social dimension. In a continuous stream of impressions, what becomes
selected as memories in the mind is determined by group dynamics—by the
social interaction with others who share the same experience(s) or have the
same understanding of events. Remembering, Halbwachs noted, takes place
in individual minds, but through group membership.2
The second dimension of social memory is related to how group identity is
produced through the active remaking of the past. As members of a social

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group commemorate and attach meaning to the past, their self-awareness and
self-consciousness is created. Memory is, as understood by Olick and Robbins,
‘a central, if not the central, medium through which identities are consti-
tuted.’3 Social memory is also a battlefield. Just as there are struggles over
dominant narratives and discourses in society, there are struggles over memo-
ries. Where one finds mnemonic hegemonic strategies of states and other
powerful actors, one also finds counter-memories challenging these.4
The role of football and the sports arena in how societies remember, I will
argue, is an understudied field in the social science of sport.5 In the case at
hand, I will analyze how football matches contribute to preserve social memo-
ries of ethnic communities. The chapter is organized into three phases of
symbolic battles between Palestinian Jordanians and East Bank Jordanians
observed during football matches. First, from 1970 to the Oslo process in the
1990s with the Palestinians’ social memories of the civil war to reassert their
national identity. Second, after the Oslo process until the Arab uprisings in
2011, the East Bank Jordanians’ assertions of the historic roots of the alliance
between East Bank tribes and the Jordanian monarchy. And finally, Palestinian
refugees’ social memories of their common ethnic origin, confirming their
refugee identities while being Jordanian citizens.

Methodology

This study is methodologically based on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork

in Jordan over a period of twenty years. This includes participant observation
in the Wihdat camp, deciphering of fan chants during matches, as well as
interviews and conversations with various informants, including Wihdat fans
and club leaders, and antagonists with Jordanian army and East Bank back-
grounds. My first fieldwork was in the Wihdat camp in the summer of 1994,
focusing on Palestinian refugees’ coping strategies.6 Having learnt about the
camp football club and the political dimensions of football in Jordan, I
returned to Jordan the subsequent year to do ethnographic fieldwork in
Amman focusing on the political role of football in the country.7 Since then,
I have followed developments in Wihdat and its football club during several
rounds of fieldwork. The two latest field trips to Wihdat took place in 2012
and 2014. In 2012, I carried out fieldwork for a study of the role of football in
the Arab revolutions.8 While I base this chapter on material gathered going all
the way back to my first visits, the main fieldwork was conducted in 2014.
Following Wihdat matches during the end of that football season, I observed

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 FOOTBALL’S ROLE IN HOW SOCIETIES REMEMBER

how ethnic roots and symbols, like the iconic status of mulukhiya,9 appeared
to have gained a more dominant place in the chants of supporters than what
I had registered earlier. This was what made me contemplate the crucial role
of football in social memory, preserving the two sub-nations of Jordan: the
Palestinian Jordanians and the East Bank Jordanians.

The First Phase: Social Memories of the Civil War during Football Matches

In 1948, with the establishment of Israel and the Arab defeat in the Israeli–Arab
war, no country received more Palestinian refugees than Jordan. After the war,
King Abdullah of Jordan annexed the West Bank, which had until then been
part of the British mandate of Palestine. With the annexation of the West Bank,
and the massive influx of refugees from within what became Israel’s border in
1948, Jordan was demographically Palestinianized. The 340,000 indigenous
Jordanians saw 450,000 West Bank Palestinians and 450,000 Palestinian refu-
gees become not only new inhabitants of Jordan, but also new citizens, as
Abdullah thought of himself as the king of the Palestinians and East Bank
Jordanians alike and granted the Palestinians citizenship.10
When Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, this partly represented a
moment of liberation for the refugees.11 The Arab monarchies, like Jordan,
were weakened, while the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the PLO, was
taken over by Palestinian guerrilla groups, mainly based in Jordan. The PLO
guerrilla groups could barely absorb all the refugees streaming to their offices
to take part in the armed struggle. Fatah, the main PLO group, had an explicit
strategy of engaging Israel in armed struggle launched from Israel’s neighbor-
ing states. When Israel responded, this would force these states to participate
on the Palestinian side against Israel. The strategy was largely successful until
1970. Other PLO groups wanted to first use armed force to bring down what
they saw as reactionary regimes of the Arab world, like Jordan, and to subse-
quently unite the Arab world against Israel.12
By September 1970, King Hussein had had enough and cracked down on
the PLO. The PLO headquarters in the Wihdat camp on the outskirts of
Amman was dealt the heaviest blow as the Palestinian resistance movement in
Jordan was crushed, eventually fleeing to Lebanon. The Palestinian refugee
camps, and first among them, the Wihdat camp, were in ruins.
After the 1970 civil war, an ‘East Bank first’ policy was employed in Jordan.
It meant that the Palestinians from then on confronted innumerable problems
within the Jordanian bureaucracy in order to obtain a driving license or pass-

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

port, register a business, etc. The Palestinians were discriminated against

because of their national identity. Nevertheless, their exclusion from any mid-
dle ground, and the increased segregation and discrimination, inadvertently
strengthened internal Palestinian social interaction and solidarity, and thus
also Palestinian national identity. Suppressing Palestinian nationalism ended
up reinforcing it. The only arena where Palestinian national identity could be
openly expressed became, from then on, the football arena. From the ashes of
the Wihdat camp, the headquarters of the PLO during the civil war, and the
most heavily damaged of the camps, was born the most successful sporting
phenomenon in Palestinian history.
Wihdat Football Club evolved as a result of the activities of the youth
centers established in the camps by the United Nations Relief and Works
Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the UN agency
administering the camps. Initially, the various refugee camps organized their
own separate league system, outside the national Jordanian system. From
1975, however, teams from the Palestinian refugee camps were admitted into
the Jordanian league. Wihdat evolved into a tremendous success story.
Through its matches, the refugees would get to know the rare taste of victory.13
Thus, while most matches in the Jordanian league attracted an audience of a
couple of hundred, the Amman stadium was packed with 20,000 supporters
when Wihdat played—and not only in Amman; wherever Wihdat played in
Jordan, the Palestinian refugee population rushed to the stadiums. Wihdat
became a symbol of Palestinianness, with the club insignia visible all over
Jordan wherever there were Palestinians. Wihdat’s jerseys, shorts, and socks
were black, green, red, and white, the colors of the Palestinian flag. There was
a heavily enforced law against exposing or supporting Palestinian nationalism,
but there was no law against supporting a football team in the Jordanian
league. A special car horn sound came to be associated with Wihdat, and the
green Wihdat shirt was everywhere to be seen. Wihdat became an unequivo-
cal expression of Palestinianness, an identity elsewhere forbidden.
Each year, Wihdat climbed within the league system. In 1980, they sensa-
tionally won the league. The supporters celebrated this and subsequent vic-
tories as if they were indeed national victories. ‘Wihdat is something holy, it
is Palestine. … When Wihdat lose, Palestine loses’ said an inhabitant of the
Wihdat refugee camp.14 The role of the football team in raising the morale
and self-respect of the refugees was explicit in supporter chants: ‘Arrange the
chairs, arrange the chairs, the green Wihdat raises our heads’ (suffu al-karasi,
suffu al-karasi, al-Wihdat al-akhdar byirfaʿ al-raʾsi). In the football arena, the

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 FOOTBALL’S ROLE IN HOW SOCIETIES REMEMBER

refugees reformulated their identity. They replaced the stigma of abandoning

their lands and losing their honor by becoming fida’iyun, or armed guerrilla
fighters, chanting, ‘we don’t want wheat or sardines, we want bombs’ (ma
bidna thin wala sardin, bidna anabil). In the Jordanian context, a reference
to armed struggle would inadvertently be interpreted as a reference to the
1970 civil war as much as to the Palestinian liberation struggle. Supporters
of opposing teams from East Bank origin ridiculed Wihdat for being
cheap—it being the location for the largest and cheapest tomato market in
the Amman area—often chanting: ‘The whole of Wihdat sells tomatoes.’
Wihdat supporters responded with ‘we are all Palestinians,’ and ‘we are all
fida’iyun’ (guerrilla soldiers).15
This symbolic war between the supporters at matches—Palestinians
against ethnic Jordanians as during the civil war—would increasingly be
accompanied by physical clashes between the supporters. Crowd violence
peaked at a match in 1986. As police forces fired warning shots during the
disturbances, several people were injured and one supporter of the Faisali
team—the team most associated with East Bank nationalism—was killed.
The incident represented a breaking point regarding the Jordanian regime’s
tolerance for the mini civil war fought anew every time the Faisali and
Wihdat teams met. The board of Wihdat was dissolved and the club was put
under direct control of the Jordanian government. Moreover, a name change
was imposed. The new name, al-Difftain—or, the two Banks, referring to the
East Bank and West Bank of the Jordan river—was designed to express the
government’s desire that the club no longer be the property of Palestinian
refugees. But it would take much more than a name change to remove the
most distinctive feature of the club—the only arena in Jordan where
Palestinian national identity could be expressed in public. Wihdat support-
ers continued to chant heavily politicized chants during matches. ‘Take off,
take off, from the Amman stadium to the West Bank’ (shalit, shalit, min stad
al-‘Amman li-Daffa al-Gharbiya) they chanted, turning the Two Banks
name into one of return and re-conquest.
In 1988, the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza stirred up
the deadlocked Middle East conflict. One consequence was King Hussein
withdrawing Jordan’s claims over the West Bank. Jordan thus abandoned its
ambition to represent Palestinians in the West Bank and Jordan alike. A year
later, Jordan abolished emergency rule and opened the way for democratic
elections. The new parliament elected in 1989 promptly decided to abolish
the al-Difftain impositions. Control over the club was returned to the

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Wihdat camp, and its board could again gather at the club’s headquarters
inside the camp.
With the 1993 Declaration of Principles between the PLO and Israel, and
Jordan’s peace agreement with Israel in 1994, a new political reality dawned
for the Palestinians in Jordan. Visualizing Palestinianness and acquiring inter-
national recognition of the PLO were no longer collective Palestinian issues,
with the PLO being internationally recognized as the sole representative of
the Palestinian people. The focus of the Palestinian national movement was
now state building in the self-ruled areas of Palestine.

The Second Phase: FC Faisali, Asserting the Common Roots between

the Monarchy and the East Bank Tribes

It takes two to tango. If the civil war was fought all over again symbolically
during football matches, the club foremost representing East Bank national-
ism was FC Faisali. From 1957 until 1977, they were unrivalled in Jordan,
winning the league every single year. When Wihdat rose to fame it was chiefly
at the expense of Faisali. The symbolism could not be missed. Wihdat replaced
the Jordanian team that had been the symbol of East Bank success and of the
alliance between Jordanians of tribal origin and the Jordanian throne. It was
the story of Palestinians in Jordan; if Wihdat could replace Faisali, the
Palestinians could eventually take over the whole country. Wihdat matches
against Faisali would consequently bring to the surface East Bank Jordanians’
deeply felt resentments.
The civil war had severely crushed the illusion of Jordan as a united country,
and room for a middle ground had disappeared. An East Bank neo-national-
ism had emerged alongside Palestinian nationalism. East Bank neo-national-
ism represented those who regarded the Palestinians as ungrateful for the
hospitality of Jordan, a country that granted them refuge as well as citizenship.
Some saw the Palestinians as traitors.16 The core of East Bank neo-nationalism
was thus anti-Palestinianism, emphasizing values opposed to that of the
Palestinians. The PLO’s nationalism had been largely secular, pan-Arabic, and
leftist. Neo-Jordanian nationalism emphasized tribal roots and values, Islamic
tradition, and Hashemite loyalty. Importantly, East Bank neo-nationalism
emphasized the tribal roots of the monarchy itself.
Historically, Jordan was never a political community. It was made a country
because of British interests in controlling the unruly tribal people of some
300,000 living in the area between Syria, Palestine, and Iraq. Unlike the Arabs

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 FOOTBALL’S ROLE IN HOW SOCIETIES REMEMBER

of the Arabian Peninsula who sided with Britain during the First World War
to bring the Ottoman Empire down, the Bedouins of Transjordan sided with
their Ottoman rulers. The reason was that the Bedouins wanted to preserve
the status quo rather than have borders limit their freedom of movement.
However, while the British faced rebellions in Iraq, Egypt, and Syria, their
colonial rule in Transjordan turned out to be a great success. The key to this
success was the benevolent form of indirect rule practiced, through the
shaykhs of the tribes, not instead of them.17 To understand the alliance
between the Faisali football club and the Jordanian throne, these historical
ties are of essential importance.
‘Abdullah bin Husayn, the son of the Sharif of Mecca, was brought in as the
ruler of the tribal confederacies, operating under British supremacy and
receiving a monthly salary and a budget to administer the area. When the
nomadic tribes gradually settled, they were handed plots of land and they
adjusted to a mixed system of pasturage and cultivation. Moreover, the sons
of shaykhs were recruited to military desert control, administered by the
British. This turned the former nomadic raiders into the core of the armed
forces of Transjordan—a well-trained professional army with modern weap-
onry. By the time the Kingdom of Jordan was established as an independent
state in 1946, replacing the British mandate of Transjordan, tribal opposition
had been transformed into a founding element of the new state. The co-option
of dominant tribes implied that Jordan was a state-building project as opposed
to a nation-building project. Rather than nationalizing tribal identities, the
tribes ‘tribalized’ the nation.18 Some subgroups—the co-opted tribes—were
privileged at the expense of others. To this day, various sub-national identities
have been sustained within the Jordan regime. It might be argued that the
Palestinians, in spite of being granted citizenship in Jordan, were never really
integrated, as the tribal core of the state asserted itself again and again. When
Faisali became a main proponent of East Bank neo-nationalism, it related to
this history and how the club came to symbolize the alliance between the East
Bank tribes of Jordan and the crown.
Faisali is the oldest football club in Jordan, founded in 1932 during the
British Mandate. It was the club of the Adwan tribe—one of the most power-
ful tribes in Jordan—in the Balqa region where Amman is located. During the
British Mandate, King Abdullah, the ruler under British supervision, recruited
members from the Adwan tribe into the elite troops of the Transjordanian
army.19 This meant that close ties were forged between the throne and
Faisali—the tribe and the club—long before the influx of Palestinians to

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Jordan. With the demographic Palestinization of Jordan, however, the club

gained a new meaning: as a symbol of the royal–tribal alliance in which
Palestinians played no part. Its success in football reflected the hegemonic
power of this alliance in Jordan. Thus, during football matches, unlike in any
other domain, Wihdat’s challenge to Faisali’s dominance and references to the
civil war bring out exclusivist anti-Palestinian East Bank nationalism. This was
partly triggered by political developments in the 1990s. In 1991, martial law
in Jordan was abolished and in the subsequent year political parties were legal-
ized. The prospect of genuine democratization constituted a threat to East
Bank tribes and elites who had benefited from nepotism and close relations to
the throne. ‘There was a prospect that Palestinians might take over Jordan
through the ballot box. Moreover, with the Israeli–Palestinian peace process
of 1993, the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza
was no longer quite so unimaginable. For Palestinians in Jordan the scenario
represented a dilemma regarding the prospect of having to move to a part of
Palestine that was not their original home. Many therefore preferred their
Jordanian citizenship. For the East Bank nationalists, however, a Palestinian
state would solve the problem of democratization; the Palestinians could ‘go
home.’
While the deep respect of the East Bankers for the late King Hussein would
contain more radical East Bank neo-nationalism, this ended with the ascend-
ance of King Hussein’s successor, King Abdullah II. With the death of King
Hussein in 1999, the perception that the state was under full East Bank con-
trol was shaken. The long-time heir to the throne, Crown Prince Hassan, had
largely been considered a leader of the hardline camp against normalization
with the Palestinians, and was strongly opposed to the PLO.20 As King
Hussein fell out with his brother Hassan during the last days of his reign, he
chose his inexperienced, eldest son, Abdullah II, in what was widely perceived
as a shocking decision. With the new king being married to a Palestinian,
Rania, East Bank nationalists started pondering what the future could bring.
Two years after Abdullah’s ascent to the throne, it was at the Amman football
stadium where an unprecedented East Bank message challenging the monar-
chy was first heard: ‘wahid, ithnan, talaqha, Abu Husain’ (‘one, two, divorce
her Abu Hussein [Abdullah]’), and ‘talaqha wa tazawwaj ithnan minna’
(‘divorce her and marry two from us’). The message was clear: Abdullah
should divorce Rania, and marry someone from the tribes for Jordan to sepa-
rate from the Palestinians. This led Wihdat supporters to counterattack rather
than bow their heads. Playing on the threat of Palestinians taking over the

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 FOOTBALL’S ROLE IN HOW SOCIETIES REMEMBER

country, Wihdat supporters started chanting ‘Um Husain jibi awlad, khalina
nuhkam al-bilad’ (‘Umm Hussein [Queen Rania], give us children, so we can
rule the country’).21
The anti-Rania chants of Faisali supporters were allegedly also a cause for
clashes during the Wihdat–Faisali derby in 2009 in Zarqa, which received
international attention following the leaks of an American embassy report.22
The match was interrupted and cancelled as Wihdat players were bombarded
with bottles and other items by Faisali supporters. In spite of the seriousness
of the incident, which was notably underreported in the Jordanian media, the
disturbances during the Wihdat–Faisali derby the following year, in Amman
in December 2010, were even worse.23 After Wihdat won the match, as part
of the normal procedure, their supporters were kept inside the stadium. They
were pelted with stones thrown by the Faisali supporters from outside. The
situation got out of hand, creating panic, unrest, and clashes, with cars set on
fire and property damaged. Two hundred and fifty people were injured, with
many hospitalized.
The neo-nationalist spirit was inflamed at the football stadium, and eventu-
ally also found its way to the Jordanian public. In 2011, at the start of the Arab
uprisings, what had hitherto only been heard during football matches suddenly
appeared in Jordanian media in a public letter signed by thirty-six tribal leaders.
Echoing chants from Faisali fans against Queen Rania, the letter called upon
the King to ‘return lands and farms given to the Yassin family (Rania’s family).
The land belongs to the Jordanian people.’24 Moreover, Queen Rania was
accused of ‘corruption, stealing money from the Treasury and manipulating in
order to promote her public image—against the Jordanian people’s will.’ The
letter also included an unprecedented warning for the king: ‘King Abdullah
has to stop his wife and her family from taking advantage of their power, oth-
erwise the crown might be in danger.’25 Offending the royal family is forbidden
by law in Jordan and could lead to prison terms of up to three years. But the
signatories of the letter were powerful, and the campaign was initiated by a
committee of tribal army officers, the National Committee for Retired
Officers. One of the signatories, the army veteran Ali Habashneh, noted that
the government would not send generals to jail. He also said that he was explic-
itly against a democratic, constitutional monarchy in Jordan: ‘We are against
democratization.’26 Democratization would mean a change in the election
system, where votes from the Palestinian areas would count as equal to the
votes from Jordanian areas, and ‘could lead to civil war.’
The letter deeply shocked the Jordanian monarchy. Steps toward democra-
tization, including changing the heavily gerrymandered election system disfa-

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

voring the Palestinians, were reversed.27 Jordanian–Palestinian relations have

since been at a freezing point. When Fatah convened its seventh congress in
Ramallah in November 2016, its twenty-six delegates from Jordan remained
notably absent. They had allegedly been threatened with revocation of their
Jordanian citizenship if they attended.28
In societies less divided than Jordan, football supporters who blame the
police for unrest would often be dismissed as biased. The category of fanatical
football supporters known as ‘ultras’ have, after all, made confronting the
police a part of their ethos. However, in the Jordanian context, there appears
to be some truth to Wihdat’s claims of bias against their supporters during
these unrests. According to Wihdat’s dirtector, Tareq Khoury, the same flavor
of East Bank neo-nationalism that animates Faisali ultras also exists in the
special police branch of the Jordanian security apparatus, the darak, or gen-
darmerie, deployed during Faisali–Wihdat matches.29 When describing the
disturbances that took place during a match in 2010, Khoury argued that the
darak had all but orchestrated the unrest: ‘We won the game and were cele-
brating. All of a sudden the darak started to push and hit our fans. I felt that
a disaster happened, and that there would be many killed … 99 percent of the
darak are Faisali sympathizers, thinking that those of Palestinian origin are
taking everything in the country, in stead [sic] of themselves taking control.’
The unrest subsequently spread to other places in Amman, and the Wihdat
camp was bathed in tear gas. According to Khoury, the darak forces wanted
all of the Palestinians to suffer. Cracking down on the Palestinians was an
attempt to rebalance the imbalance of Wihdat deposing Faisali, and equally
reconfirmed where the true power of the state was and should be located: in
the historic national ties between the East Bank tribes and the monarchy.

The Third Phase: Reasserting Ethnic Roots

What then is the current status of football as an arena for social memory
production for the two competing sub-nations constituting Jordan? In May
2014, I visited Jordan to follow the end of the season, with Wihdat seeking to
win their thirteenth league championship. In Irbid, Wihdat played
Al-Hussein, whose supporters appeared to be a lighter version of Faisali sup-
porters, basically sharing their anti-Palestinian East Bank nationalism. In a
battle of Arab Palestinian Jerusalem against Hashemite Jerusalem, Wihdat
supporters chant: ‘Allāh, Wihdat, al-Quds al-ʿArabiya’ (‘God, Wihdat, Arab
Jerusalem’), and Al-Hussein supporters respond: ‘Allah, Husain, al-Quds al-

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 FOOTBALL’S ROLE IN HOW SOCIETIES REMEMBER

Hashimiya’ (‘God, Hussein, Hashemite Jerusalem’). Al-Hussein supporters

use the Hashemite tie to Jerusalem—the Jordanian royal family has actually
taken care of the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem since 1924—to challenge
Al-Quds as a national Palestinian symbol.30 However, for Faisali ultras, the
core Bedouin East Bank neo-nationalists, Al-Quds was never really a histori-
cal symbol, anti-Palestinianness being more important than the Hashemite
descent of the monarchy. During the 2016 derby, when Wihdat supporters
chanted, ‘with soul and blood we will redeem you, Al-Aqsa’, Faisalis reportedly
responded, ‘With our soul and blood we will redeem you, Israel’,31 in a move
to support the enemy of the enemy. After another derby in 2014, during skir-
mishes between the supporter groups outside the stadium, a Wihdat leaflet
alleged that Faisali supporters burnt a picture of the Dome of the Rock, the
iconic mosque of the Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem.32 Thus, although
regional unrest after the Arab uprisings and the civil war in Syria led to calls
for national unity in Jordan from King Abdullah II,33 this apparently has not
reduced East Bank Jordanian–Palestinian tensions at the football stadiums.
While East Bank neo-nationalist Faisali ultras have grown even more
antagonistic, however, a new trend has apparently gained momentum among
Palestinians, emphasizing common descent, unity, and refugee identity rather
than armed struggle. I argue this is the case, in spite of an old rebel song that
is still being sung. As I entered the home ground of Wihdat in Amman in May
2014, the supporters sang the fida’i song, Habbat al-nar:
The fire swelled and the rifles sang:
Calling to the youth, O nation, give hope.
The fire swelled from ‘Akka to al-Tira;
A handful of children raised on straw mats
Became youth and never forgot the homeland,
For who could forget the paradise of Palestine?
The fire swelled, dignity, dignity!
They became martyrs and woe unto
Those who blind themselves.
The dawn of freedom will come through
Drawing the henna in blood.
Habbat al-nar was originally composed after the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon in 1982, and was used as a call for young camp refugees—‘children
raised on mats’—to join the armed struggle and to become martyrs.34 Today,
however, the song’s appeal for Wihdat supporters may be understood in
relation to how the song evokes memories of a common struggle in the
Wihdat refugee camps. One of the lyrics explicitly refers to al-Tira, a village

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

in Palestine that was destroyed by Israel after 1948, and from where
Wihdat’s refugees originated.
The ethnomusicologist David McDonald observed the catalytic effect of
the song. During a commemoration of the Nakba in the outskirts of Amman,
a skirmish developed between supporters and non-supporters of the armed
Islamist Palestinian resistance group, Hamas. When the performing ensemble
observed this, they hurried to sing Habbat al-nar. The fighting instantly
stopped. Later, the singer said he knew that most of those present were from
Wihdat, and that singing about memories from al-Tira would have secular
and Islamist Wihdatis alike forget their differences. Referring to al-Tira would
remind them ‘of their shared history.’35 In the current political circumstances,
the shared history of the Palestinians in Jordan, their ethnic origin, more than
the state-building project of the Palestinian national movement, is what mat-
ters. Apparently, this increasingly dominates Palestinian social memorializa-
tion during Wihdat matches.
In fact, during Wihdat’s matches at the end of the 2014 season, there was a
peculiar increase in references to ethnic origins. When Wihdat played
Al-Hussein in Irbid, the latter’s supporters chanted, ‘grass-eaters, grass-eaters’,
to which Wihdat supporters answered, ‘shepherds, shepherds.’ Yanal, a young
Palestinian who accompanied me at the match said, ‘they say we used to eat
grass’, referring to the years of famine. When Palestinians arrived in Jordan in
1948 in shattered conditions, they found refuge in camps made of flattened
petrol cans, before the UN provided them with tents.36 The Al-Hussein home
supporters continued chanting, ‘ʾaʿtinkum buyut, ʾaʿtinkum masari, ʾantum
taʿishum bisababna’ (‘We gave you homes, we gave you money, you live
because of us’). The Wihdatis responded with, ‘Allah ʾa ʿtana al-haqq’ (‘God
gave us our rights’).
The Wihdat supporters went on to chant, ‘shepherds, shepherds’, referring
to Al-Hussein supporters’ East Bank origin as shepherds—that is to say, primi-
tive Bedouins, still walking their goats on the outskirts of town. The ‘grass-
eaters’ and ‘shepherds’ chants may thus be interpreted as going beyond the
Nakba to the heart of the distinctive historical features of the two ethnic
subgroups of Jordan: the historical badu–hadar cleavages of the region,
between the nomadic pastoral Bedouin and the fallah, sedentary peasant,
which is used to distinguish local Palestinians in the region from the
Bedouins. The Bedouins regard the peasants’ attachment to land as a source
of humiliation, and consider peasants to be enslaved by others who control the
land, not autonomous and free like Bedouins; while in the peasants’ world-

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 FOOTBALL’S ROLE IN HOW SOCIETIES REMEMBER

view, controlling the land and cultivation is a source of dignity, contrasting

with the nomadic badu bands of thieves and robbers.37
The cultural relevance of this historical difference can also be found in food
practices—one that has also entered the football pitch. Food is, as Efrat Ben
Zevi has outlined, something that connects refugees to their land. This is
especially so for dishes made of plants found in Palestine. Each village had its
own distinctive olives and oil, like ʾaqubd (tumble thistle), maryamiya (sage),
za‘tar (hyssop), sabr (prickly pear), zaitun (olives), and ‘alat (winter greens).
Plants, and food made from them, thus act as mnemonic devices. When non-
Palestinian Jordanians refer to Palestinians as ‘grass-eaters’, this is also related
to how grass-plants are integrated in traditional Palestinian dishes. In Jordan,
one dish in particular—mulukhiya—has come to symbolize this tie between
Palestinian ethnic identity and grass-plants. This green, thick liquid dish is
considered a classic rural fallahin food, and is common across the Arab world,
not only in Palestine. Nevertheless, in Jordan, it has become the symbol of
what is not Bedouin food, and consequently, is a symbol of Palestinianness.
During the match in Irbid, a reference to mulukhiya suddenly broke out
during the game: ‘Maʿiah, maʿiah, Rafat Ali, sub al mulukhiya’ (‘Go, go, Rafat
Ali, drink the mulukhiya’), the Wihdat supporters chanted. This was a refer-
ence to how Rafat Ali, a legendary Wihdat captain who was originally a refu-
gee, came to appropriate the mulukhiya as a symbol for Wihdat and the
Palestinians. It goes back to Wihdat returning some years ago from a cup
match abroad, having been crushed 7–1. In the subsequent match in Jordan,
non-Palestinian supporters brought a banner to the match reading, ‘Wihdat
will not win the cup before MacDonald’s [sic] starts selling mulukhiya.’
Wihdat supporters picked up on this, printing and bringing their own posters
of McDonald’s menus, which included the mulukhiya dish. When Wihdat
became the Jordanian champions later the same season, the Wihdat captain
Ali brought a branch of mulukhiya as he received the trophy and pretended to
drink it, thus connecting it to the Wihdat victory. During derbies, Faisali
supporters chant ‘al-mulukhiya wa al-jisr’ (‘mulukhiya and the bridge’), imply-
ing that the Palestinians should take their plant and leave Jordan through the
Allenby bridge crossing over to the West Bank and Israel. While mulukhiya as
a Palestinian symbol has thus become contested, the chant ‘maʿiah, maʿiah,
Rafat Ali, sub al mulukhiya’ (‘Go, go, Rafat Ali, drink the mulukhiya’) has
become one of the most characteristic Wihdat chants in recent years.
Back at the Amman stadium in May 2014, Wihdat played the East Bank
Jordanian team That Ras. Wihdat only needed one point to win the league.

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The match ended with a 2–0 victory and Wihdat became the champions.
Amidst a huge police presence, one Wihdat supporter managed to enter the
pitch to celebrate, and was chased by police. To the tremendous joy of the
Wihdat crowd, as he ran towards the main stand of the Wihdat supporters,
he waved his victory banner: a mulukhiya plant.

Conclusion
The Palestinians have historically lacked the formal national institutions to
preserve their national past. Without state authority, they were prevented
from establishing museums, conducting archaeological digs, or making his-
torical sites accessible within a national framework.38 While this was especially
the case prior to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, the situation
has remained dire for the Palestinians in Jordan. They lack the formal appara-
tus for the preservation of their national past, one that constitutes them as a
national group. This has made informal forms of collective memory exception-
ally important in forming Palestinian identity in Jordan.
As for the East Bank Jordanians, Abu-Odeh has noted that they never really
fought for their independence—the tribes were merely co-opted by an imported
monarch—and so they have no national heroes, martyrs, or monuments to
celebrate. This left East Bank nationalists with ‘the Palestinian moment’, the
1970 civil war, as their prime nationalist narrative. Anti-Palestinianism thus
became the core and essence of East Bank neo-nationalism.39 As neither of these
nationalist narratives of the Palestinians and the East Bankers are in harmony
with the Jordanian monarchy and its Hashemite descent, they need alternative
arenas for their expression. This explains the unique role of football matches for
ethnonational social memorialization in Jordan.
Social memory processes found at the football stadiums represent two
equally important and intrinsically related social phenomena. First, collective,
historical memories are produced. Second, during football matches, with their
symbolic and physical confrontations, these collective memories are also
enacted and embodied. Through football performativity, individual experi-
ence and collective identity formation are brought together. This is a process
generating tremendous synergies. Football, as one of the world’s greatest popu-
lar culture phenomena, tends to be analyzed as reflecting deeper social, cul-
tural, and political streams.40 However, as this chapter has shown in the
Jordanian context, football does not merely reflect sociopolitical and cultural
processes.41 It is in itself a process through which people and nations are
socially constructed.

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 3

HAPOEL TEL AVIV AND ISRAELI LIBERAL

SECULARISM

Tamir Sorek

Introduction

The cheering repertoire of Hapoel Tel Aviv’s fans in football and basketball
includes a puzzling paradox. On the one hand, the banners on the bleachers,
such as ‘Workers of the World Unite’, reflect a well-articulated universalist
ideology stemming from the meaning of Hapoel, ‘worker’ in Hebrew. ‘Anti-
racism’ is part of the collective self-image of the fans, and they frequently
express an explicit inclusive orientation toward the Arab citizens of Israel. In
contemporary Israel, which since the turn of the century has witnessed a dras-
tic deterioration in Arab–Jewish relations,1 this attitude is not self-evident.
On the other hand, the fans’ repertoire is far from being ‘politically correct’ in
any other dimension. The cheering songs include violent, sexist, classist, and
Germanophobic content, and the fans do not refrain from frequent mocking
of the personal tragedies of the rival team’s players and managers. Even by the
rough standards of Israeli culture, Hapoel’s fans are notorious for their lack of
self-censorship.

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

To complicate the matter even more, a non-negligible number of fans do

not hesitate to challenge some well-established sacred Israeli taboos, including
explicit anti-patriotic slogans and frequent use of Holocaust terminology for
expressing their hatred of their ultimate urban rival, Maccabi Tel Aviv. While
accusations of being Nazi-like are far from being new to the Israeli public
sphere, Hapoel’s fans are the only group who frequently use this analogy in the
sporting sphere.
Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning see the evolution of modern sports as a
major element in the ‘civilizing process’ of British society, a process that is
characterized by decreasing tolerance for sights of violence in the public
sphere. As a result, the need emerged for a social sphere where regulated forms
of violence were permitted.2 One of the spheres in which this feature of mod-
ern sport is the most evident in contemporary sport is the fans’ discourse,
where they practice forms of verbal aggression that they would not dare to
display in other contexts. In the same vein, the Israeli sociologist Amir Ben
Porat called the football bleachers a ‘permission zone.’3 The permission zone,
which can be found in other sports as well, is not a zone where everything is
permitted. Rather, it is a zone where the boundaries of the legitimate and the
illegitimate are constantly negotiated. The ‘fanatic’ sports fans are those who
consistently flirt with the boundaries of legitimacy in their societies, challeng-
ing the most sacred taboos and bringing to the surface unarticulated emotions
and opinions, which are usually covered by layers of a common aspiration for
social equilibrium or political correctness.
This is what makes the rhetoric of these fans so valuable for sociological
inquiry. It turns out that the fans of different teams use the permission zone
for displaying different sets of ideas and for challenging different sacred
taboos. These differences tell us much about internal tensions and contradic-
tions in a given society. In this chapter, I analyze the rhetoric of Hapoel Tel
Aviv’s hardcore fans and the demography of the wider circle of sympathizers.
This bifocal examination reveals that the stadium rhetoric is actually an
expression of fundamental struggles between competing definitions of
Israeliness. The transgressive rhetoric of Hapoel fans, I argue, is partly related
to the decline in the political power of the secular elite in Israel. The insights
are based on: 1) A 2012 online survey of 500 respondents who constitute a
representative sample of the adult Hebrew-speaking population in Israel;4 2)
a survey conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) in 2009, including
2,803 respondents who constitute a representative sample of the adult Jewish
population in Israel;5 3) analysis of Hapoel Tel Aviv fans’ website; 4) collecting

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 HAPOEL TEL AVIV AND ISRAELI LIBERAL SECULARISM

and examining fans’ songs available on YouTube; and 5) semi-structured inter-

views with six hardcore fans of Hapoel Tel Aviv conducted between
November 2012 and January 2013.

Hapoel Tel Aviv, Betar Jerusalem, and the Boundaries of Citizenship

Social scientists Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled identified a continuous ten-
sion between three partly contradictory political goals and commitments
characterizing Israeli political culture: the colonial project of settling the
country with a specific group of people; the ethnonational project of building
a Jewish nation-state; and the liberal project of establishing a democracy.6 In
the case of Socialist Zionists, another goal complicates the picture—the cos-
mopolitan vision of ‘brotherhood of people’, which only partially overlaps
with the liberal discourse of citizenship. Therefore, from its very first steps in
the early twentieth century, socialist Zionism in Palestine contained a tension
between the aspiration for universal justice and the nationalist-colonialist
particularistic agenda that aspired to settle the country with Jews and to build
up autonomous Jewish political and economic power. Ze’ev Sternhall argues
that the internal division among Zionist socialists between ‘nationalists’ and
‘Marxists’ was quickly decided in favor of the faction that represented the
former, and consequently the universalist elements were subordinated to the
national agenda.7
Since the late 1970s, however, the republican discourse has been weakened,
while both the liberal and the ethnic discourses have gained power. The com-
petitions between these discourses highly overlap with self-definitions of
religiosity, where secular Jewish Israelis tend more to support the liberal dis-
course, and religious Israeli Jews tend to promote the ethnic discourse.8 The
realm of sport fandom, as a ‘permission zone’, allows extreme articulations of
this competition to be displayed. It seems that the most dramatic expression
can be found in the cheering rhetoric of Hapoel Tel Aviv and its political rival,
Betar Jerusalem. In 2014, the journalist Motti De Picciotto conducted an
online survey with 1,646 Israeli football fans, and found that when asked to
describe their team, Hapoel Tel Aviv fans tend, much more than fans of any
other team, to use emotional vocabulary, relying on terms such ‘us’, ‘love,’ ‘soul,’
‘heart,’ and ‘exciting.’ Second to them in using emotional vocabulary were the
fans of Betar Jerusalem.9 Interestingly, these two teams have the most distinct
political orientation among Jewish Israeli football teams. I argue that this
association between sports, emotion, and politics is not incidental and reflects
deep sociopolitical currents in Israeli society.

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

At their establishment in the first half of the twentieth century, Zionist

sports federations were organized along political lines. Historically, Hapoel
was associated with the trade union congress (Histadrut) and the socialist
wing of Zionism that dominated it until 1977. Maccabi was affiliated with the
General Zionists, a bourgeois party;10 and Betar was the outgrowth of the
militant revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923, later linked to
the Herut (and afterwards, the Likud) party. Each federation established local
branches throughout the country.

Hapoel Tel Aviv

The Hapoel Tel Aviv football team was established in the 1920s, and the club’s
basketball team was founded in 1935. Until the mid-1990s, both Hapoel Tel
Aviv teams were considered the flagship teams of the veteran socialist, mostly
Ashkenazi ( Jews of European origin) establishment. Then, following the dras-
tic decline in the status and power of the Histadrut in Israeli society—which
was a major reflection and materialization of the decline in the relative power
of the republican discourse of citizenship—both Hapoel Tel Aviv teams were
sold to private owners. This was part of a general process of privatization and
commodification of Israeli sport.11 The process has loosened the political
identities of most professional clubs, while Hapoel Tel Aviv and Betar
Jerusalem remained prominent exceptions. Even though most of the tradi-
tional demographic base of support of Hapoel has experienced upward mobil-
ity, the rhetoric and symbols remained connected to a globalized
cosmopolitan working-class language. Red is the team’s color, the hammer and
sickle icon is still part of the logo, and even the face of Che Guevara can be
spotted periodically on banners.
These symbols have become more visible since the end of the 1990s as part
of a broader ‘professionalization’ of fan culture in Israel. Fans have become
more organized and coordinated, and official fan organizations have been
established, some of which are verging on illegality, or even crossing it, in
terms of their aggressiveness. In 1999, the Hapoel Tel Aviv Ultras was estab-
lished. The organization was inspired by Italian fan organizations,12 and this
inspiration is reflected in its name, its antiestablishment orientation, its maca-
bre logos, its transgressive tendencies, and its flirting with violence. The hard-
core of this organization—whose boundaries are blurred since there is no
formal membership—includes no more than several dozens of activists, but
their agenda and cheering style dominate the bleachers.

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Demographically, most of the Hapoel Ultras are men in their 20s and 30s.
In terms of class and origin they are diverse, but almost all of them are secular
in their lifestyle. Some leaders of the group were raised in families with a clear
socialist consciousness, while some adopted the ideology later in their lives,
but the ideological orientation of the group is socialist with a clear inclination
toward an inclusive discourse of citizenship. As Bar (pseudonym), an Ultra
activist, told me: ‘Most of us are left wing but this is not a requirement. The
requirement is not to be racist.’13 It is noteworthy that secular liberal Israelis
are mostly upper and middle class (see Table 1), and therefore in Israel, the
terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ do not always refer to the usual political or economic
realm but to one’s position regarding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the place
of religion in politics, and the boundaries of Israeli citizenship.
The Ultras are members of Antifa, a global network of militant anti-fascists
to whom many left-leaning football supporters pledge allegiance, including
dozens of clubs across Europe.14 This small group of activists is also responsible
for the banner that accompanied the team when it played in Europe in the
twenty-first century: ‘We represent Hapoel, not Israel’, an anti-nationalist
statement that is far from being consensual among Hapoel fans.15 The Ultras
are politically active, and participate in the annual May Day parade in Tel Aviv.
In 2008, they officially endorsed a candidate in the election for the city mayor,
Dov Hanin, a parliament member of the Communist Party and a fan of
Hapoel Tel Aviv.16
Unlike most professional teams in Israel, the process of privatization in
Hapoel Tel Aviv has been reversed recently. The basketball club is owned
and managed democratically by an association of more than 1,800 fans, and,
in late 2012, the fans purchased 20 percent ownership of the football club.
Evidently, this anti-privatization process is compatible with the political
agenda of the Ultras.

Betar Jerusalem

Betar Jerusalem football club was founded in 1936. In the 1940s, most of the
team’s players were members of either the Irgun or the Lehi underground
militias, which resulted in the British authorities expelling some of them from
Palestine.17 After the State of Israel was established, Betar’s image as a bastion
of oppositional voices was intensified. Whereas the various Hapoel teams were
related to the establishment, Betar attracted the outsiders, the oppressed, and
the victimized. Jerusalem absorbed many of the Jews who emigrated en masse

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

from Arab and Muslim countries during the 1950s and 1960s, who are
referred to in contemporary Israel as Mizrahim (Easterners, or Orientals). The
immigrants from the Middle East, and especially those from the Maghreb,
were met with a patronizing, Orientalist attitude by government agencies
responsible for integrating them, and within a short time found themselves
relegated to the bottom of the socioeconomic hierarchy and to the margins of
the political system. Furthermore, those who did not belong to the ruling
Mapai party—one of the incarnations of the Labor Movement—suffered
from additional discrimination in employment and housing. In those years,
Betar’s circle of fans developed into a kind of political and cultural opposition.
Politically, the team continued to be identified with the right-wing Herut
party that was populist, anti-socialist, and committed to territorial expansion-
ism. Culturally, the Betar Jerusalem bleachers resounded with songs and slo-
gans borrowed and adapted from old Sephardi Jewish religious tunes, which
were usually excluded from the government-monopolized media until the
early 1980s.
Betar’s transformation from a locally based club to a team with a national
following is related to the close link between the team and Likud leaders, as
well as Betar’s first major achievements—winning the state cup tournaments
in 1976 and 1979—coinciding with the political upheaval that brought Likud
into power in 1977. In fact, the demographic coalition enabling Likud’s vic-
tory was reflected in the growing circle of Betar fans. Throughout the 1980s,
the triangular relationship of Likud–Mizrahim–Betar was crystallized. Betar’s
successes over the course of the 1980s and 1990s—three championships and
three state cups—made the team popular among wider circles of fans, includ-
ing many Ashkenazim and even Arab citizens. However, it remained especially
popular in what was once termed ‘the second Israel’, namely, among Mizrahim.
In recent years, Betar’s right-wing image has made it popular among settlers in
the West Bank. Like Hapoel Tel Aviv, Betar was privatized, but this did not
affect its popular image as a bastion of the Israeli political right.
As shown in Table 1, the current demographic characteristics of the sympa-
thizers of Hapoel Tel Aviv and Betar Jerusalem distinguish them from other
football fans in the Israeli Premier League. I refer to them as ‘sympathizers’
rather than ‘fans’ since the requirement for inclusion in this category is mini-
mal. It includes anyone who considers himself/herself a fan, even slightly. This
means that it does not necessarily reflect the character of the fans in the
bleachers, but rather the demographic profile of those who have a sympathetic
view of the team. According to this survey, Hapoel supporters are more edu-

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cated, and tend to define themselves as Ashkenazi and much less as Mizrahi.
The most salient feature, however, is their secularism. Israeli Jews defining
themselves as secular are either non-observant of religious law or, alternatively,
observant of some Jewish traditions without ascribing religious meanings to
them, and a clear majority of Hapoel Tel Aviv fans feel comfortable with this
labelling. The sympathizers of Betar, on the other hand, tend to be more
Mizrahi and much more religious than the rest of Israeli football fans. Betar
also has the largest ratio of supporters who live in the occupied West Bank,
while none of the Hapoel Tel Aviv supporters in the sample lives there.

Table 1: Demographic attributes of sympathizers of Hapoel Tel Aviv and Betar

Jerusalem18

Hapoel Tel Aviv Betar Jerusalem Fans of all clubs

(N=37) (N=67) (N=154)

Religious 14% 38% 16%

Secular 62% 21% 41%
Ashkenazi 54% 36% 42%
Mizrahi 24% 46% 40%
College education 49% 30% 39%
Living in the West Bank 0% 10% 3%

While the right-wing leaning of Betar is not new, a new vocal anti-Arab tone
has developed among its fans since the 1990s. Betar is also the only professional
team in Israel that has never hired an Arab player. Up until the 1990s, only a
few professional Jewish teams hired Arab players, but the influx of Arab players
since then has passed Betar by. Today, some hardcore fans even consider anti-
Arabism as inherent to the identity of the club.19 Initiatives by the management
to bring in Arab players were thwarted by fan pressure, and, in recent years, the
opposition has been extended to Muslim players, even if they are not Arab. In
a study of Israeli football fans, 113 Jewish fans of four large Israeli clubs (thirty
of them fans of Betar) were asked if they support or oppose the inclusion of
Arab players in their teams. Only fourteen fans opposed the idea—twelve of
them were Betar fans.20 This means that even among Betar fans there was a
majority who support the inclusion of Arab players, but that the significant
minority is strong enough to prevent any change in the policy.
The repertoire of Betar fans includes some rather unrefined anti-Arab and
anti-Muslim messages. Here is an example of a popular Betar chant, dedicated
to the Arab star of Hapoel Tel Aviv, Salim Tuama, with music based on a song

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

from Sllah Shabati, a 1964 Israeli comedy film about the difficulties Jewish
Mizrahi immigrants faced in the early years of the state:
What does Salim do here?/ I don’t know!/What is it here? I am asking/ From
every side I am hearing:/ Tuama, here is the Land of Israel/ Here is the Land of
Israel, Tuama/ Here it is the state of the Jews/ I hate you, Salim Tuama/ I hate
all the Arabs!
Other offensive content includes scorning the prophet Muhammad and
violent slogans like ‘May your village burn’, ‘I swear to God that Arabs won’t
be here’, and the best-known rhythmic slogan, ‘death to the Arabs.’
Since 2000, the anti-Arab stand of Betar’s fans has become more militant.
The fan organization La Familia, established in 2005, has close ties to far-right
politicians and it openly identifies with the outlawed Kach movement that
supports a theocracy and the expulsion of all Arabs. This movement,21 which
is officially defined by Israel, the US, and the EU as a terrorist organization,
has a flag that is sporadically seen in Betar’s stadium, and political leaders of
the far right—some of whom are former Kach activists who are active now in
parties with different names—are commonly seen on the bleachers. It is note-
worthy that in the 1970s, when Kach was established, the veterans of the
Irgun tried to distance themselves from Kach and even appealed against the
movement’s use of the Irgun’s logo. But many things have changed since then.
This does not mean that the majority of Betar fans support Kach’s ideology,
but the extent of support is not negligible and is seen and heard in the
stadium.
Scholars of Israeli society have tried to explain anti-Arab sentiments among
Mizrahim either through their competition with Arabs over the same low-
paying jobs,22 or their need to deny the Arab component of their identity in a
political atmosphere where Arab identity is stigmatized in a state that dis-
criminates against Arabs.23 Adopting and emphasizing nationalistic, hawkish,
and, at times, Arab-hating views seemingly enable Mizrahim to blur what they
have in common with Palestinian Arabs. However, these dynamics provide a
very partial explanation for Betar’s racism because there are many other teams
with a dominant Mizrahi fan base that did hire Arab players, and their
Mizrahi fans did not organize to prevent their inclusion. In addition, nowhere
is the anti-Arab rhetoric as extreme as in the case of Betar. Betar’s unique stand
might be related to the interaction between the ethnic background of the
team’s fans, the political extremism that has developed specifically in Jerusalem
since 1967, and the calculated and instrumental investment of movements like
Kach and its offshoots among Betar’s fans.

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Anti-Racism among Hapoel Fans

Whatever the reason for the anti-Arab sentiments among Betar fans, these
racist expressions enable the fans of Hapoel Tel Aviv to see Betar as the ulti-
mate political ‘others.’ The anthropologist Daniel Regev conducted in-depth
interviews with Hapoel fans and asked them ‘what is, in your opinion,
Hapoel’s spirit?’ and ‘what values does Hapoel represent for you?’ The most
frequent answers were ‘being different’, ‘co-existence’, ‘tolerance’, ‘community’,
‘anticonformism’, and ‘anti-racism.’24 In other words, the anti-racist message
has a wider appeal among the fans, beyond the Ultras. While blatant anti-
Arab slogans and chants have become very common on the bleachers of the
Israeli Premier League, they are rarely heard among the crowd of teams where
the inclusion of Arab players has become part of the tradition of the club, as
in the Maccabi Haifa or Hapoel Tel Aviv football clubs. This anti-racist atti-
tude is also common among the fans of the Hapoel Tel Aviv basketball club,
although Arab representation in Israeli basketball is negligible and attitudes
toward Arabs is a non-issue in this sport.25
The anti-racist discourse is also embedded in a concrete social reality, and,
in certain periods, relied on active support of the management. This reality
includes, for example, a long tradition of including Arab players and fans.
On the fan website Adom Oleh, one can find that supporters are proud to be
affiliated with a club whose football team was the first ever Jewish Israeli
team to have an Arab player as captain: Walid Bdeir was appointed captain
in 2007. Hapoel Tel Aviv is also a partner in the Education and Social
Project, founded by the former owner of the club. This is an organization
that uses football to bring children from Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan
together for coexistence programs.26
This explicit liberalism extends as well to the attitude toward guest work-
ers and undocumented residents. Since the mid-1990s, but especially since
2007, tens of thousands of Africans from Sudan and Eritrea have entered
Israel through its borders with Egypt. Their presence in Israel has become a
controversial political issue, and, in June 2012, the Israeli Immigration and
Population Authority announced that 4,000 migrants who cannot attain
the status of refugee, based on their country of origin, would be deported.
Five youth who were supposed to be deported were basketball players at
Hapoel Tel Aviv, and the club took an active part in mobilizing support for
their case. In the summer of 2012, the Hapoel Tel Aviv basketball club also
organised summer camps for the children of guest workers and undocu-
mented residents. In many of the senior team’s basketball games, the

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

announcer declared the club’s objection to the deportation. This enthusiasm

to adopt anti-racism as part of the club’s identity is, among other things, a
way to distinguish Hapoel from other teams, especially from Betar. Being
anti-racist became a self-flattering label of many Hapoel fans, extending far
beyond the narrow circle of the Ultras.
In the Israeli context, anti-racist attitudes cannot be discussed without
reference to religiosity. Studies consistently show that, in Israel, the less
religious one is, the stronger one’s commitment to democratic values. To be
sure, an exclusionary understanding of citizenship that emphasizes
Jewishness as a criterion for acceptance has been common among secular
Jewish Israelis as well, who, after all, were the founders of Israel as an ethnic
nation-state. However, when Jewish Israelis were asked in a 2015 survey
about the relative importance of the democratic and Jewish components of
state identity,27 the majority of seculars (53 percent) prioritize the demo-
cratic over the Jewish. Among ultra-Orthodox,28 zero percent prioritized
the democratic elements; among those who declare themselves as religious,29
6 percent; and among traditional Jews,30 17 percent. Furthermore, 80 per-
cent of secular Jews disagreed with the statement ‘Jewish citizens of Israel
should have greater rights than non-Jewish citizens’ compared with 25 per-
cent of the ultra-Orthodox, 53 percent of those who declare themselves as
religious, and 73 percent of traditional Jews.31 In Israel, being secular is the
strongest predictor for commitment to democratic values. Therefore, as
secular Jews, Hapoel fans have a relatively high tendency to reject the purist
Jewish ethnic discourse of citizenship.

Localism and Nationalism

The Betar–Hapoel conflict has another dimension related to the contrast

between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem as two opposing poles of Israeli identity. In
this context, the Israeli sociologist Uri Ram writes that:
the retreat of nationalism; the rise of individualism; the spread of pluralism; and
the overarching hegemony of capitalism—all centered actually and symbolically
in Tel Aviv rather than in Jerusalem. All the while, the neo-Zionist nationalist,
ethno-centric, and fundamentalist backlash—an orientation centered in and on
Jerusalem—is also on the rise. Critics are right to argue that Jerusalem and Tel
Aviv belong to the same system, and despite their blatant antagonism, they
belong to the same Zionist colonialist project. Yet despite this commonality
between the cities, each of them indicates a distinct potential.32

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A chant recorded in 2000 by Gal Sokolovsky, a devoted Hapoel fan, is a

vivid expression of these post-nationalist tendencies Ram ascribes to Tel Aviv:
‘Put Jerusalem in Jordan/Divide it into two/Put Jerusalem in Jordan/ Give it
to the Palestinians/ Put Jerusalem in Jordan/in the ’67 borders/Because there
is no need for Teddy [Betar’s stadium], nor for Betar/ Nor the Wailing Wall,
nor the Knesset/ because everything in this city is unnecessary.’33
The melody of this chant was taken from a song glorifying Jerusalem, writ-
ten after the 1967 war and the occupation of East Jerusalem. The ‘liberation’
of Jerusalem is celebrated by an official national holiday, known as Jerusalem
Day, and the above-mentioned song became a common element in the musical
repertoire of the holiday. Over the years, despite its official status, the holiday
has not been widely adopted nor observed by most secular Jewish Israelis, and
one can spend Jerusalem Day in Tel Aviv without noticing that this is a holi-
day. Note that this is not a ‘peace song’ calling for reconciliation between
Israelis and Palestinians or Jordanians. The author simply could not care less
about Jerusalem and its symbolic weight. The lyrics reverberate a typical Tel
Aviv, secular hedonistic perspective in which national-religious symbols such
as the Western Wall are unnecessary: during encounters with Betar fans, it is
common to hear the wish, ‘may the Western Wall fall on you.’ In this context,
even a major symbol of Israeli sovereignty such as the Knesset (the parliament)
is ridiculed.
Studies of the relationship between nationalism and localism have provided
evidence that these orientations might maintain either relations of opposition,
congruence, or even frequent alternation between these two orientations.34
The fans of Betar and Hapoel display two opposing models for this relation-
ship. While for Betar fans their loyalty to Jerusalem and their Zionist patriot-
ism seems to coexist in harmony, the self-image of many Hapoel fans is based
on a tension between their local and national identity. Regev argued that the
anti-nationalist stand of Hapoel Tel Aviv fans is a demand to prioritize local
identity over national identity, and he shows how fans use the same vocabu-
lary to describe their team and the city of Tel Aviv (‘tolerance’, ‘sanity’, ‘plural-
ism’). Fans of Hapoel are divided in their interpretation of the sign ‘we do not
represent Israel’—some oppose it; some interpret it as a protest against the
wave of militant patriotism that swept the country, especially when the sign
was first introduced during the second Intifada; and some see it as an aspira-
tion to exclude nationalism from the stadium and to allow a limited autonomy
for local loyalties and loyalty to the club in the stadium.35 The balance of
power between each of these orientations is in constant flux, and the anti-

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nationalist attitude is not always dominant. There seems to be, however, a

general agreement among fans that their version of Israeliness—embodied and
localized in the character of their city—has been marginalized in contempo-
rary Israel.

The Holocaust: A Sacred Taboo or a Source of Moral Capital?

Another element that clearly sets the fans of Hapoel apart, especially the bas-
ketball team, is the frequent use of Holocaust terminology. This has been a
source of tension and confrontation among the fans, as well as between fans
and the management. Even though both the football and basketball clubs
were penalized by their respective sport associations, the intensive attempts of
the more established fans to eliminate this phenomenon have achieved so far
only partial success.
Explaining the incorporation of Holocaust terminology into the fans’ rep-
ertoire requires examining the central place of the Holocaust in Israeli public
culture.36 First, it is part of the family biography of a significant portion of the
Israeli Jewish population, especially among the economic and cultural elites,
in which Jews of European origin are overrepresented. Second, the Holocaust
and its Zionist moral interpretation—the necessity of an independent Jewish
power—was incorporated intensively into public education. Today, the
Holocaust is popularly considered a major raison d’être of the State of Israel,
and therefore the event has been loaded with sacral qualities and has become
a major element in Israeli civil religion.37 Fourth, the Holocaust is popularly
considered a salient source of moral capital that legitimizes various aspects of
Israeli policy,38 especially in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
There is, however, a clear tension between the third and fourth elements.
The more the Holocaust is used rhetorically for legitimizing policy, the more
its sacred quality as a taboo is being eroded. Holocaust metaphors are readily
available ‘tools’ in the cultural ‘tool kit’ of Jewish Israelis.39 In the internal
Israeli discourse, political opponents have been compared to Nazis since the
1950s, and this comparison was frequently considered an extreme form of
protest. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the use of the Holocaust
discourse intensified, both externally and internally. Internationally, and espe-
cially in Europe, Israeli governments have found it increasingly difficult to
explain their policy in the occupied territories and therefore have attempted
to use the moral credit of the Holocaust. Internally, the decision to withdraw
from the Gaza Strip in 2005 was seen by certain religious-Zionist groups as an

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existential threat. Consequently, decision makers, as well as those who were

assigned to carry out the evacuation, were quickly compared to Nazis.40
This inconsistency of the Israeli establishment—constant demand to main-
tain the sacred status of the Holocaust, on the one hand, and the steady instru-
mentalization of its memory for achieving political gains, on the other—paved
the way for the provocative reference to the Holocaust by Hapoel fans.
Referring to Betar fans, the philosopher Anat Rimon-Or has identified the
slogan ‘death to the Arabs’ as a form of counter-hegemonic protest, since it
interferes with the humanistic liberal rhetoric so often deployed as a cover for
Zionist indifference to Arab life. Explicit demands to kill Arabs both back the
Zionist ethos and disrupt it by exposing its inconsistency.41 In a similar way,
the intensive and uncensored use of Holocaust metaphors by Hapoel Tel Aviv
fans exposes the contradiction between the Holocaust as a sacred taboo and
the Holocaust as a political instrument. As the issue touches a very sensitive
nerve, it is not surprising that Holocaust chants provoke reactions from politi-
cians, and are formally discussed at the Knesset.42
Due to lack of documentation it is difficult to determine who ‘started’ it,
but there is no doubt that the most elaborate and intensive use of Holocaust
terminology has been directed by fans of Hapoel Tel Aviv toward their urban
rival, Maccabi Tel Aviv—the most ‘hated team’ on the Ultras’ list—and
appeared in the early 1990s at basketball matches, later spreading to the foot-
ball stadium. In the local context of Tel Aviv, Hapoel has been the underdog
team. Their urban rival, Maccabi Tel Aviv, has won many more titles, both in
football and in basketball. Maccabi has attracted many more fans, and the gap
has been especially noticeable in basketball. Maccabi Tel Aviv’s basketball
team is the most successful sports team in Israel and one of the most successful
teams in European basketball. Up until 2014, Maccabi had won 51 national
championships, 39 state cups, and 5 European championships. From 1970 to
1990, Maccabi Tel Aviv won 23 consecutive championships. In those years,
the team’s success in Europe allowed it to develop an almost irreversible finan-
cial advantage over the rest of the basketball teams in Israel, an achievement
that enabled it to buy any Israeli player who was seen as a potential threat to
its domination. These years were especially frustrating for the fans of Hapoel
Tel Aviv. The image of an unbeatable, ruthless, and efficient enemy filtered by
the interpretative tools available in the Jewish Israeli collective memory led to
the association ‘Maccabi=Nazis’, which is also partly motivated by the drive of
the non-ideological Hapoel fans to retaliate against Maccabi fans who called
them ‘Communists.’ In 1993, after Maccabi lost its first championship in

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twenty-three years, Hapoel fans celebrated the event by painting swastika

graffiti on the car of the club’s manager, Shimon Mizrahi.
In certain contexts of the Israeli public sphere, the distinction between
‘Nazi’ and ‘German’ is blurred, and the terms are used interchangeably.
Therefore, Maccabi Tel Aviv was commonly referred to as a German team
by Hapoel fans. Later on, this association spilled over from the basketball
arena to the football stadium. In the first decade of the twenty-first century,
the ‘Songs of the German’—based on the melody of ‘You are my
Sunshine’—became popular among Hapoel Tel Aviv’s fans in their games
against Maccabi:
Number one is German/Number two is German/Number three is German [etc.
until number 10, skipping number 8], Gate 11 [the location in the stadium of
the most vocal Maccabi fans] is German/The coach is German/ The manage-
ment is German/ The masseur is German/The quartermaster is German/
Number 8 is Nimni—big time German!43
The last line refers to Avi Nimni, a prominent player in Maccabi during the
1990s and 2000s who became the fans’ favorite and a symbol of the team. An
edited photo of Nimni with a Hitler-style moustache has been disseminated
on the web by Hapoel fans. They also uploaded a parodic ‘Hitler is Angry’ clip
in which Hitler is furious about the decision of Maccabi Tel Aviv’s owner to
fire Nimni from his position as coach in 2011.44
When fans label their sporting rivals ‘Nazis’, public reactions are hostile but
relatively moderate. However, the tone drastically changed when the rhetoric
switched the roles of victim and victimizer. In the early 2000s, shortly after the
establishment of the Ultras, Hapoel fans started to wish ‘revenge’ against the
‘Nazis,’ and a new slogan was born: ‘Let Maccabi have a Holocaust.’ From then
on, it became common to hear Hapoel fans cursing Maccabi players, manage-
ment, and fans, and wishing upon them ghettos, gas chambers, and cremato-
riums. For example, the second part of the above-mentioned chant ‘Put
Jerusalem in Jordan’ begins with ‘Put Maccabi in the chambers/fill them with
gas.’ In another popular chant, the fans sing ‘Maccabi are Nazis/Fucking
whores/We wish you would die, burning alive,’ with the word ‘Nazi’ some-
times accompanied by an arm raised in a Nazi salute. The sight of hundreds of
young Jewish Israelis performing a Hitler greeting—a criminal offense in some
European countries—in a major Jewish city certainly provoke the shocked
reactions the fans desire. The fluidity of the victim–victimizer roles became a
salient feature of the Ultras’ Holocaust metaphors. The home arena of
Maccabi Tel Aviv’s basketball club, Yad Eliahu, is interchangeably referred to

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as the Reichstag or Yad Vashem, the national site for the commemoration of
the Holocaust in Israel.
A fan of Hapoel who uses this terminology explained her behavior in an
interview on an Israeli news website:
The fans of Hapoel tend to declare that they are out of the mainstream. I choose
this extreme behavior and the football stadium is for me a [place for] catharsis
where everything is permitted. I enjoy uttering these expressions exactly because
I take them in the right proportion. Those who don’t—it’s their right. Our high
level of education enables us to use extremism without being labeled arsim like
the other teams.45
The justification is multilayered. First, since ‘we’ are highly educated—and
therefore rational—we do not ascribe magical power to words, as other less
rational people do; and if they do, ‘it’s their right’, namely, their problem.
Second, we will not be perceived as ‘arsim,’ the Hebrew plural for the Arabic
word ‘ars’, which literally means ‘pimp.’ In colloquial Hebrew, this is a deroga-
tory term for the stereotype of a low-class young man, usually of Mizrahi
origin—a set of attributes typical to the stereotype of a Betar fan.
Another possible reason, not articulated by this fan, is that in being part of a
Tel Aviv-centered, secular post-nationalist culture, Hapoel fans feel less commit-
ted to unifying Jewish symbols and myths, and have fewer restraints that deter
them from undermining these symbols—as in the case of mocking Jerusalem.
Indeed, a 2003 survey revealed that secular Jewish Israelis have a lower level of
Israeli national pride than people in other categories of religiosity.46 This relative
reservation about unifying Jewish symbols even affects attitudes toward the
Holocaust. In the 2009 IDI survey, interviewees were asked about the impor-
tance of remembering the Holocaust as a principle guiding their life. Because
Jews of European origin are overrepresented among secular Jews, one would
expect that they ascribe more importance to the Holocaust than Jews of other
origins. The results, however, contradicted this expectation. Although Jews of
every category of religiosity see much importance in remembering the
Holocaust, their level of religiosity was positively associated with this tendency.
Among the aggregated category of religious, ultra-Orthodox, and traditional
Jewish Israelis, 84 percent ascribed the highest level of importance (‘very impor-
tant’). Among those who defined themselves as nonreligious or secular, only
78 percent answered ‘very important’, and among those who defined themselves
as ‘anti-religious’, the ratio was only 65 percent.47
Although the Holocaust, as an element in Jewish collective memory, is
seemingly a secular source of collective identification and justification for

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Zionism, certain social processes have alienated some secular Israelis, more
than other Jewish Israelis, from its use in the Israeli public sphere—an aliena-
tion that is an extension of the general dissatisfaction with contemporary
public articulations of Jewish-Israeli national identity. In the following con-
cluding section, I suggest an analysis of these processes.

Fan Rhetoric and Crisis of Legitimacy

At both the Hapoel and Betar clubs, fans in the stadium violate social taboos.
In both cases, what allows this violation is not only the context—the stadium
as a permission zone—but also sentiments of marginalization and alienation.
These similar sentiments, however, have very different origins. Betar’s La
Familia members, and by extension the large circle of Betar sympathizers,
come from a relatively low-income and low-education background, and most
of them are Mizrahim. Many of them might feel marginalized economically
and deprived of the cultural capital that allows effective participation in shap-
ing the discourse in mainstream media. They feel, justly or unjustly, that the
public sphere is dominated by a worldview antagonistic to theirs.
Seemingly, secular Ashkenazi Israelis have no reason to feel alienated. The
seculars have enjoyed numerical advantage and political prominence. To date,
all Israeli Prime Ministers and the vast majority of cabinet ministers, judges,
and generals have been secular Jews. When Jewish Israelis are offered four
categories of religiosity (secular, traditional, religious, and ultra-Orthodox),
most surveys show that the ‘seculars’ are the largest group, approximately
42–44 percent, a number that has been stable over the past three decades.
Furthermore, secular Jews in Israel are much better off economically than
other groups. In 2015, in 54 percent of the secular Jewish households, the
average monthly income per capita was above 4,000 NIS ($1,050), as com-
pared with only 30 percent of non-secular Jewish Israeli households.48
Similarly, 38 percent of adult secular Jews held an academic degree, compared
to only 23 percent among other Jews of Israel.49
Nevertheless, this socioeconomic superiority, and even the apparent advan-
tage in the political sphere, mask a prolonged crisis of Israeli secularism, espe-
cially regarding its relation to Israeli national identification and pride. As the
Northern Irish sociologist Claire Mitchell argues, especially in context of
ethnic conflicts, ‘religion often constitutes the fabric of ethnic identity. Even
if identities do not appear to be primarily religious per se, they may have latent
religious dimensions that can become reactivated.’50 Therefore, the self-defini-

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tion ‘secular’ does not imply severance from the religious Jewish legacy.
Nevertheless, Israeli secular identity is constructed through its relative dis-
tance from religion.51 While Israeli patriotism and secularism seemed almost
inseparable in the early days of the state, they increasingly develop tense rela-
tions in contemporary Israel.
The Israeli social scientists Charles Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiye,52 as
well as the sociologist Baruch Kimmerling,53 see a direct link between the
crisis of legitimacy experienced by Zionists and the need for Jewish religious
symbols to cope with this crisis. Solid legitimacy for the Israeli national pro-
ject is essential for two reasons. First, there exists a native population that has
paid the price for the Zionist project. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict, there-
fore, is frequently managed in the moral field, whereby each side aspires to
accumulate moral capital. Second, legitimacy is needed because Israelis are
constantly facing demands for significant sacrifices, both individual and col-
lective, to maintain the national project. Kimmerling believes that this crisis
has dictated the choice of symbols from the very first steps of the Zionist
movement. Since the Zionist project faced violent resistance by Palestinians,
it repeatedly had to explain to Jews and the international community why it
chose Palestine as its target territory for settlement. Since materialist reason-
ing could not be used to justify this choice, Zionism has been ‘unable to dis-
connect itself from its original identity as a quasi-messianic movement. The
essence of this society and state’s right and reasons to exist is embedded in
symbols, ideas, and religious scriptures—even if there has been an attempt to
give them a secular reinterpretation and context.’54
Liebman and Don-Yehiye identified the 1967 war as the turning point in
this scheme. After occupying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, among other
territories, Israel became the direct ruler of a large Palestinian population,
whom Israel left in limbo with no defined status or civil rights. Liebman and
Don-Yehiye argue that the old Israeli ‘civil religion’ based on statism, secular-
ized Jewish symbolism, and invented tradition was not enough to provide
legitimacy to the new circumstances. Consequently, ‘Israelis were increasingly
thrown back onto utilizing religious, or at least seemingly, religious argu-
ments’,55 the end result being the emergence of a ‘new civil religion’, one which
‘seeks to integrate and mobilize Israeli Jewish society and legitimate the pri-
mary values of the political system by grounding them in a transcendent
order.’56 This quest for legitimacy has never subsided, and has even tended to
intensify with the escalation of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The ‘old Israeli
civil religion’ was closely connected to the republican secular discourse of citi-

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zenship. Under the circumstances of a growing crisis of legitimacy, this dis-

course was not satisfactory in terms of providing moral support. Therefore,
Israelis either withdrew from collective goals by adopting a liberal discourse—
and, implicitly, avoiding collective responsibility—or an ethnonational dis-
course, which is immersed in religious symbolism. The latter is popular among
traditional and religious people, who are over-proportionally represented
among Betar fans and sympathizers, while the former option is typical of
certain secular Israelis, including fans and sympathizers of Hapoel Tel Aviv.
With the increasing reliance of Israeli leaders on biblical texts for justifying
policy, and with the growing disregard for human rights expressed in this
policy, some secular Jews who adopted the liberal discourse find themselves
gradually alienated from hegemonic articulations of Israeli patriotism. The
frustration of the secular liberal fans of Hapoel Tel Aviv leads to a political
alienation. This is the story of a former elite who might still hold relative
economic power, but whose influence over the political sphere has been in
steady decline over the past four decades. The anti-nationalist rhetoric of
Hapoel Tel Aviv Ultras—including the statement ‘we do not represent the
state’, and the mockery of national symbols such as the Wailing Wall—might
not be explicitly condoned by the wider circle of fans. Nevertheless, it reflects,
or at least is enabled by, the alienation that many secular liberal Israelis feel in
contemporary Israel.

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 4

QATARI FEMALE FOOTBALLERS

NEGOTIATING GENDERED EXPECTATIONS

Charlotte Lysa

Introduction

Female Qatari footballers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the
one hand, they are subject to a conservative culture, upheld by society and
families, in which it is largely unacceptable for a woman to play football. On
the other, they are being encouraged by government policies, in accordance
with pressure from international organizations, to pursue sports careers and
to showcase these internationally in a way that is culturally acceptable for very
few Qatari women. Asef Bayat uses the term ‘subversive accommodation’ to
describe the ways young people in the broader Middle East region, including
women, are redefining cultural norms, and negotiating with the dominant
system to work in their interest rather than departing from it.1 Such a pattern
of engagement can be found among female footballers in Doha: in order to
play football, they negotiate cultural barriers, and many have created a ‘safe
space’ where their activity can be seen as less problematic. This chapter focuses

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on how the women themselves are navigating these obstacles, creating an arena
to pursue their passion in a culturally appropriate way.
As Gary Whannel notes, sports can be used as a prism to understand socio-
political issues on multiple levels.2 In this chapter, football is used as a tool to
examine how the women themselves maneuver the system, thus both accept-
ing and transgressing established norms in the society to which they belong.
Examining how women engage with football in particular is interesting for a
number of reasons: it is generally considered a masculine sport in most socie-
ties, and certainly in the Middle East;3 it is an arena where national, political,
and ethnic identities are expressed;4 and, especially in relation to Qatar, it is
subject to an enormous effort that is developing and promoting the game both
nationally and internationally.
On 2 December 2010, Qatar was unexpectedly selected as the host of the
2022 FIFA World Cup—the world’s second largest sporting event after the
Summer Olympics. The announcement meant that intense international
attention immediately turned to Qatar. Despite Qatar’s lack of international
success in the sport, and Western commentators’ claims that Qatar lacks a
football culture,5 football is the most popular sport in the country.6 This is also
the case among women, who often grow up watching and playing football
along with male family members. Outside the home, however, it becomes
challenging for females to take part in football culture as they grow older and
gendered expectations prevail. As will be discussed in the following pages, this
is especially true for organized, competitive football.
Over the past decade, Qatar has invested enormously in national and inter-
national sports development, partly explained by the bid for the 2022 World
Cup, which demands a certain commitment to the sport.7 These investments
include efforts to develop women’s sports, although these investments are
limited compared to men’s athletic activities. The Qatar Women’s Sports
Committee (QWSC) was set up in 2001 by royal decree, and has since
worked on creating awareness and improving conditions for women in sports.8
The QWSC helps to facilitate female athletes and develop women’s sports
along with the relevant national sports federations. Qatar’s first women’s
national football team was set up in 2010. Despite these efforts however,
women’s football is still a neglected part of the Qatari sports evolution. In
2012, Kelly Knez et al. interviewed five players from Qatar’s first female foot-
ball team, arguing that the World Cup has already been a catalyst for change
in the field of women’s sports, but that cultural factors make it harder for
women to participate, thus demanding serious negotiation between the play-

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ers, their families, and society.9 Four years later, however, the national team
struggled to recruit Qatari players, and the activity (and funding) was notably
lower.10 Although the efforts following the awarding of the 2022 World Cup
have provided formal opportunities for elite sport, such changes cannot over-
night transform the societal and cultural factors that prevent women from
playing football. This chapter will thus focus on the female football players for
whom the national team, for different reasons, is not an option.
Many Qatari women are indeed interested in playing football, but official
structures do not meet the necessary conditions for women to engage in the
sport in a way that does not come into conflict with established cultural
norms. By using the example of university teams, I demonstrate how some
women, instead of simply refraining from playing competitive organized foot-
ball, navigate existing norms and structures in order to pursue their interest in
compliance with local culture. In doing so, these women create a space where
their activities remain unopposed by society in general, one that allows them
simultaneously to contest established customs.
This chapter builds on empirical data collected through interviews with
Qatari women actively playing football. In addition, several interviews were
carried out with other people involved in the sport sector, either as officials or
athletes, both men and women, Qatari and expatriate. The interviews were
conducted during two visits to Qatar in 2016, over a total of three months
spent in the country. I conducted thirty interviews, mostly in English, where
approximately half were with young (aged 18–25) women engaged in foot-
ball-related activities.11 I used a semi-structural approach, where certain
themes were set, while at the same time allowing the interviewee to provide
new angles, or introduce new subjects to the conversation.12 The topics for the
interviews mostly related to the women’s motivations and aspirations for play-
ing football, their interest in the sport, perceived obstacles to playing, reac-
tions from members of society, and how they accommodated and negotiated
their day-to-day lives in order to play football.
It is important to note that the women football players who serve as the
main example in this chapter are, demographically speaking, a rather homog-
enous group. Most of the women interviewed were Qatari citizens of Qatari
descent in their early twenties whose families had an interest in sports. Most
of the women attend universities located in Doha’s ‘Education City’,13 an edu-
cational enclave comprises of mostly western satellite universities, indicating
that they are likely to be from less conservative families than average. While
the state-run Qatar University, for example, conducts most classes in Arabic

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

and has a gender-segregated campus, this is not the case for the universities in
Education City. In the 2014–2015 academic year, there were a total of 2,318
students in the universities of Education City, of whom 58 percent were
women, and 40 percent of the total number of students are Qatari.14 These
students are generally more exposed to Western culture than Qataris from
more conservative parts of society, and they are likely to have spent some time
abroad. This implies that the female footballers of Education City are not
necessarily representative of all Qatari women. Nevertheless, this group func-
tions as an interesting example of how women who wish to pursue objectives
that might conflict with the dominant norm negotiate conditions in society
in order to create opportunities that would otherwise not be available.
The Education City women’s football teams are largely initiated by the
female students themselves. Up until 2016, the teams, leagues, and games were
governed by dedicated individuals and through existing networks. Games,
practices, equipment, and facilities were organized by the women themselves,
allowing them to adapt activities to their cultural and academic responsibili-
ties. In 2016, however, the women found support in an employee at Student
Affairs, Amna, who argued that young men and women should have equal
opportunities in sports.15 In the spring semester of 2016, three teams began
participating in a women’s league. As many of the players on the different
teams already knew each other, the games were organized through their per-
sonal networks. However, after Amna engaged the remaining universities, and
contacted the students by email, in the fall semester of 2016, six teams (one
later withdrew) signed up for a two-day league.16 Both Amna and the players
were surprised by the large turnout of both players and supporters.17

Negotiating Social Norms through Subversive Accommodation

Since the 1980s, scholars have moved beyond static analysis of male domi-
nance, allowing for a more dynamic understanding of gender relations, which
is especially useful when focusing on Muslim female agency.18 As Abu Lughod
famously points out, there has been a tendency in the human sciences to
romanticize resistance, and for scholars to be preoccupied with identifying
resisters.19 In order to achieve a comprehensive understanding of how women
are active participants in their own lives and in their communities, we need to
move past the dichotomy of resistance and domination. Instead of starting off
by searching for resistance, we should start by examining the everyday lives of
women. Agency then, should be understood as an individual’s capacity to

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make active choices, which are either in breach of, or in accordance with,
existing norms.
Saba Mahmood argues that postcolonial feminist scholarship has been
informed by the implicit assumption of a universal liberatory understanding
of freedom. Agency, she argues, has been conceptualized within the binary of
subordination and subversion. In her view, desire for freedom and subversion
of norms are deeply connected to cultural and historical conditions. Writing
on a female, “non-liberal” mosque movement in Cairo, Mahmood argues that
agency and subjectivities are present not only in actions that challenge social
norms, but also in actions that uphold them.20 In this, she makes an important
contribution by acknowledging that agency does not presuppose resistance,
thus allowing a broader analysis of female agency. This is highly relevant in the
case of the Qatari female footballers; these women are not necessarily subvert-
ing patriarchal structures, rather they are seeking to exercise their aspirations,
albeit by simultaneously accepting certain cultural norms—as will be
explained in the coming pages.
According to Sertaç Sehlikoglu, a fourth wave of feminist Middle Eastern
scholarship has emerged, focusing increasingly on subjectivities not directly
associated with piety.21 Focusing on the ordinary, Asef Bayat points out, the
subject’s acknowledgement of gender and power relations does not necessarily
mean that they are actively resisting it.22 He argues that Iranian women, recog-
nizing the constraints on organized campaigns, have pursued a strategy involv-
ing ‘mundane practices of everyday life, such as pursuing education, sports, arts,
music, or work outside the home.’23 With examples from Iran and Egypt, he
shows how youth, including women, have made claims through ‘subversive
accommodating’, utilizing existing norms and institutions, while at the same
time redefining and subverting ‘the constraints of those codes and norms.’24
Such practices are present also among Qatari female football players; the
women, instead of simply adhering to moral codes, may find or create ways to
bypass these social norms in a way that does not expose them to possible sanc-
tions by society. This does not presuppose a liberatory claim that these women
are, consciously or not, subverting the moral code that imposes limitations on
their ability to play. By focusing on their actions and their own retelling of
them, rather than looking for resisters, this study opens up a discussion regard-
ing how these women themselves perceive the barriers to their activity and,
more importantly, how they are exercising their agency in working within and
around them. Focusing on ordinary and everyday activities allows us to move
beyond binaries like resistance–quietism and pious–liberatory, and to come to

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

a more nuanced understanding of how women negotiate social norms in their

everyday lives by acting in a way that is both subversive and accommodating.
Many Palestinian female football players in Israel, according to Kenda
Stewart, conceptualize their participation in the sport as a hobby, thus creat-
ing a space for reshaping their Palestinian identity, while maintaining limits
on how far the activity can go. In this case, women’s football is treated as a
hobby rather than a profession, which Stewart argues may in fact make foot-
ball more accessible. She continues by arguing that sport can create a liminal
space in which people are freed from the external constraints and rules gov-
erning everyday life, one in which they are able to contest, ignore, and over-
turn these social roles and constraints in the spirit of play.25 Stewart’s argument
is thus transmissible to Qatar: by framing football activities within the context
of the university, rather than a professional setting, the players bypass several
of the barriers imposed upon them.

Cultural and Social Barriers to Female Football Participation

In Qatari society, the family is considered the basic unit of social organiza-
tion.26 Societal organization in Qatar is grounded in this view, and women’s
role in society is defined from this perspective. In Qatar’s National
Development Strategy, it is stated that ‘the family is the basis of Qatari society,
the foundation for all aspects of Qatar’s social structure’, and an appreciation
of traditional values is listed as one of the characteristics of healthy, cohesive
families.27 This understanding places a woman first and foremost within the
context of her duties to the family, and so also places certain barriers on her
ability to participate in certain activities, including sports.
Despite rapid economic development and modernization, Qatari society
remains culturally conservative. As formulated by one female interviewee, ‘a
man carries his own honor and shame, a woman carries the family’s.’28 A
Qatari woman is expected to dress modestly and in line with local custom; a
black abaya and a shawl to cover the hair.29 Protecting women from exposure,
or the male gaze, is central in Qatari culture. Although prominent women like
Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, the mother of the emir, have an active and highly
visible role, and Qatari women outnumber men in higher education by 2:1,30
they are still less visible in politics, and society in general, than men. Only
36.9 percent of Qatari women are active in the workforce, compared to
68.5 percent of Qatari men.31 Further, women and men have very different
rights according to Qatari law, which is still dominated by an orthodox inter-

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pretation of shariʿa in issues relating to family law.32 However, like their male
counterparts, women in Qatar lack political representation since the state of
Qatar is an absolute monarchy, with no elected bodies besides a rather insig-
nificant municipal council.33 When the emir appointed new members to the
Shura Council in November 2017, it was the first time women were among
those appointed.34
Writing on Qatari women and the role of segregated majālis,35 Jocelyn
S. Mitchell et al. argue that Qatari women find themselves under pressure to
contribute to the human development of the country and to simultaneously
maintain their roles at home. The researchers argue that women’s increased
ability to work, pursue higher education, and enter the public sphere grind
against social norms. These issues necessitate complex personal and profes-
sional choices for Qatari women today.36
Similar conflicts are also present in the field of sports, where formal oppor-
tunities are increasing, while strict social norms remain. There are no formal
laws preventing women from participating in sports, as in neighboring Saudi
Arabia, but the opportunities for women are considerably fewer than those
available for men. This is especially the case in organized and professional
sports. Sports, including women’s athletic activities, are highlighted as an
important part of Qatar’s development, and increasing female participation
in sports, particularly for health reasons, is stated as a goal in several govern-
ment documents, including the National Development Strategy, which is
part of the Qatar National Vision 2030.37 The Sports Sector Strategy, for
example, highlights that women ‘play a critical role in promoting healthy
lifestyles through their influence on their children’s health and well-being.’38
According to Susan Dun, one of the main strategies to reach this goal is to
link women’s physical activity to elite sports participation by promoting
female sportswomen in local media. However, as Dun points out, many
Qatari families do not allow female members to show their face in public or
to be featured in the media.39
Qatar’s global investments in sport, as with the hosting of the FIFA 2022
World Cup, has put pressure on the country to increase women’s participation
in sports, and has, according to Dun, contributed to large investments in
women’s sports.40 This pressure led Qatar to send female athletes to the
Olympics for the first time in 2012 in London. Instead of sending two female
athletes as requested by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Qatar
sent four—all with ‘wild card’ status.41 One was even the country’s flag bearer,
indicating that Qatar was serious about showing the world it complied with

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the demands of the IOC.42 At the 2016 Summer Olympics, however, Qatar
only managed to send two female athletes.
After being introduced to Qatar in the 1940s through British workers, foot-
ball rapidly gained popularity.43 The first official season of the Qatar Stars
League (previously known as Q-League) was played in 1972, shortly after
Qatar gained independence from British protectionism, and two years after
Qatar joined FIFA.44 The first unofficial season, however, was played nine years
earlier, according to the Qatari Football Association.45 Thus, the generation
now entering adulthood is, to a large degree, the sons and daughters of the first
generation of Qataris who grew up with football, a sport that is now important
to many families. As one interviewee, Haya, testified, ‘I remember when I was
little we used to sit with the family and watch the Qatari league. If there was a
final, if the national team was playing … it was an event that brought us
together more than anything.’46 Another woman, Aljohara, has similar memo-
ries from her upbringing: ‘ever since we were kids we always played football
with our cousins … If you ask anyone, it’s in every grandma’s house.’47
Although many of the women interviewed for this chapter grew up playing
and watching football with their families, and actively supported both local
and international teams, after reaching a certain age, they become largely
excluded from public football activities both as players and spectators. ‘I
believe that women are actively excluded from football. Even in my family,
who is a sports family’, Maryam explained.48 Even though there is a ‘family
section’ for women in football stadiums, Qatari female supporters are rare.
Mohammed, a male professional football player, said the following when
asked what he thought of Qatari female spectators in the stadium:
It’s allowed, but I wouldn’t accept them going to the stadium. It’s complicated.
It’s not usual to see ladies in the stadium. Even though they go shopping, they
go out. They are around men, but I don’t know … It’s like a tradition; I cannot
let my sisters, or my mother go to the stadium. Even to watch me.’49
This kind of attitude might help explain why even though football has been
played since the 1940s, and the QWSC was set up in 2001, it was not until
2010, the year Qatar placed its bid for the World Cup, that a women’s national
team first emerged. In 2016, however, the national team had not played any
official games in over two years.50 In a similar manner, the official female foot-
ball league was not active at the time this study was conducted.51 According
to one interviewee, the national team struggles with recruitment and, due to
government budget cuts, has no funding for travel or to pay the players, which
in turn makes fewer of the players show up for practices.52 For the girls who

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do show up for practice, many of them of foreign descent, it is for fun or as a

hobby. If Qatari women are interested in playing football, as this study shows,
then why are they so hard to recruit?
Firstly, the number of Qatari citizens is relatively small, which leaves a small
pool for recruitment of players—both men and women. In addition, as
Qataris are usually wealthy,53 there is little room for social mobility as an
incentive for a sporting career, which again plays a role in recruitment.54
Players of foreign descent are able to obtain a Qatari passport in order to
represent Qatar in sports,55 and would, according to players, obtain a higher
salary than a Qatari woman. These benefits create an incentive for female
players of foreign descent to a greater degree than for Qatari women.
Geoff Harkness identified the following barriers to female sports participa-
tion in Qatar: family, hijab, gender segregation, and reputation.56 These are, to
a large degree, overlapping but not identical to the football-specific barriers.
Harkness interviewed female players and coaches of basketball teams at the
universities of Education City. The main difference between the basketball
and football teams, and thus the sources of our respective studies, is that the
basketball teams are largely made up of non-Qatari women, whereas the foot-
ball teams are mainly made up of Qatari female citizens of Qatari descent.57 As
Haya, being one of the few Qatari women active on both the basketball and
the football teams of her university, explained:
For basketball it’s very diverse. I think for basketball, some girls don’t want to
play because its open to the public and for football it’s private. Only girls can
come and watch. Girls coach, girls referee … and no men are allowed. I think
that’s why so many of the Qatari girls are motivated to play football.58
Hessa, another football player, stated that the basketball team was never an
option for her, as she was not comfortable with men being present, despite
being better at basketball than football.59 Thus, a major difference in how the
two sports are practiced in Education City is that all-female football events
are gender-segregated. With regards to cultural norms, being in Qatar and
being from Qatar are two different things. Although Qatari culture is con-
servative, the same expectations on clothing and behavior do not apply to
expatriate residents.
It is important here to note that the challenges faced by sportswomen differ
not only depending on the sport, but also on the level of professionalism.
Practicing physical activities for leisure or health purposes is typically more
accepted than participation in semi-private and organized competitive sports.
Thus, professional competitive sports are the least accepted level of sporting

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activities for women. Hence, there are some specific barriers regarding recruit-
ment to professional football. This is reflected in a study on the lives of five
female football players in Qatar conducted by Kelly Knez et al in 2012. The
women take different precautions when playing in a public forum compared
to playing in a male-free zone. The women also engage in careful negotiation
with the media as, for example, images of the female body in movement are
considered particularly taboo.60

Resistance from the Family

When it comes to constraints on football participation, the family has a large

impact on the life decisions of both young women and men. According to
Harkness, the family is the most frequent barrier to participation in basket-
ball.61 This is arguably valid for female footballers as well; players and coaches
claim that they would have problems convincing families that playing foot-
ball is an appropriate activity for girls or young women. Aljohara argued that,
because Qatar is a very communal society, her actions reflect on her parents
and her family. Therefore, even if her parents allowed her to play football, her
extended family would have the authority to refuse.62 She recalled her own
experiences:
I had this dream … if I was going to die, I would die on the field as I scored a
goal. So that’s how I was going to be remembered. That was the dream. And
then after school, I realize that’s not the case, that’s not even an option. My
dad sat with me and explained to me, I need to tone it down. If you want to
play you can play … [but] you can never play professionally and not be associ-
ated negatively with a stereotype, and being too masculine and you know …
because we are such a small community, you can’t really afford that because it’s
not only on you.63
As the above quote exemplifies, getting support from the family, especially
for attending more professional or official football initiatives, is difficult for
many women. The motives behind the resistance of family members may be
rooted in different reasons. The prominent cause, however, is the idea of what
should constitute a woman’s role in society and in the family.
Receiving a good education is deemed of high importance among Qataris
of both genders.64 Qatar is a very academically oriented society, where a career
as a football player is considered unstable and unfavorable compared to other
vocations like engineering. This explanation was repeated by many of the
interviewees, both sport officials and players of both genders. Aljohara

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recalled that her father did not accept her brother’s wish for a career in profes-
sional football:
Even with my brothers, when they wanted to pursue it [football] as a career, my
dad would not allow it. It is not as legit as it is in Europe, because in Europe for
a guy to become a football player is kind of a big deal. Here, it’s not really. We
still hold on to hard professional occupations, like an engineer, a doctor, what-
ever, and these are the acceptable ones. So, when my brother wanted to pursue a
career in football, my dad was like, ‘you know what, it’s time for us to take you
out of these trainings because they are brainwashing you.’65
Thus, spending a lot of time playing football, both as a hobby or as a profes-
sion, is seen as an impediment to education. Some of the women inter-
viewed—those who considered playing for or had played for an official club
or the national team—noted that one of the reasons why they did not practice
properly was because training and traveling took time away from university,
and often clashed with classes. They said that they would rather pursue educa-
tion than athletics.

Exposure

By participating in professional or official football activities, one exposes one-

self. The concept of ‘exposure’ refers to being exposed to men, or being with-
out an abaya, but also in a more general way of willingly seeking a situation
that will cause one to receive attention. As Mahmood notes, the ideal of
modesty, or shyness (al-hhayā), is central in many Muslim communities.66
Qatari culture encourages female modesty, and moral codes are expected to
be followed. For female footballers, it seems that public exposure is a reason
for resistance from family members. Whereas playing for the national team
would be off-limits for most Qatari girls, playing at school or university is
more acceptable. One of the women interviewed, Sheikha, who had played for
the national team when it first started, explained how Qatari ideas about
exposure had made it particularly difficult for her to continue playing:
Being on the national team for me was really difficult. Usually when I travel
outside [of Qatar], I take my hijab off. But if you play for the national team you
had to wear a bandana, because you are representing Qatar. That wasn’t an issue.
But the issue was [that] the first game I played was against Afghanistan—they
came here—which was the first game that was going to be registered by
FIFA. So, it is an important game. Some of the girls had an issue … that the game
was going to be televised. It’s a new team, this is a conservative society. I mean,
it should develop slowly, not just immediately. So, they told us it wasn’t going to

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be televised. They told us it was going to be closed off for men. Because when I
went to my father, he was supportive and everything, but he told me that he
would mind if it was going to be televised because the whole country would be
seeing his daughter wandering around, and it’s just not within our culture to do
that. So, they told us it was going to be closed off for men, except for fathers. So,
when my father came, there was like 5–600 Afghani men, no joke! 500 men just
came and sat in the stands. Everyone was looking at each other, because they told
us no men were going to come. We played and everything, and they took foot-
age, and it was put in Qatar news.67
The Qatari women’s national basketball team protested the International
Basketball Federations’ ban on the hijab, and withdrew from the Asian Games
in 2014.68 Female team members usually have to wear a kit consisting of a shirt
and shorts, which is far more revealing than traditional Qatari attire or even
most Muslim female dress codes. This kind of sporting gear would be consid-
ered inappropriate not only because it reveals more skin, but because it reveals
the outline of the body in contradiction with customary attire.
Wishing to cater to a demand for more modest sportswear, the Oolaa com-
pany was established in Qatar by three women who wanted to make it easier
for women to engage in physical activities. The type of clothing is less impor-
tant for the university female football teams, where there is no access for men
at tournaments or practices. In addition, the majority of the informants
claimed that when playing football, exposure itself was the problem rather
than how one dressed. Maryam claimed that, in Qatar, ‘It is actually more
negative [to be] perceived to be Qatari and work out with loose fitting clothes,
than to be Western and wear shorts or show your belly.’69 Another woman,
Noura, stated that by pursuing sport and willingly exposing oneself, one
would be considered a ‘strong’ woman—in a negative sense.70 The issue of
exposure thus creates challenges for professional female footballers; it is hard
to find venues for practices and games that suit the demands for segregation.
Many Qatari women are not comfortable being portrayed in the media, which
in turn creates problems of attracting sponsors.

Transgressing the Notion of the ‘Feminine’

For the majority of the women interviewees, there are negative connotations
attached to playing football, especially playing in the established leagues. A
Qatari woman is expected to represent not only herself but also her family,
which is ultimately related to her chances of marriage.71 A big part of a young
Qatari woman’s life is preparing for marriage. As Aljohara stated:

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I’m not sure if you are familiar with this but, in the Qatari culture, once a girl
goes to university her next target is getting married, and that’s like … shoved
down your throat by your parents; mostly by your mum or female relatives. By
junior year or senior year, you’re supposed to be engaged already, you know.
You’re supposed to invest your energy in not even, like, studying; they don’t care
what your GPA is or whatever, but, they just care about the next step in life: ‘You
got into university, OK, good for you. Now the next step: you’re supposed to get
married.’ You’re not supposed to take care of your body, no, no, no, because
there’s plastic surgery to fix that. But you’re supposed to look for a husband, and
get married.72
As women’s sports are still new to Qatari society, there are prejudices
about how physical activity affects the body, potentially making it appear less
‘feminine.’ Football is understood, in Qatar, and elsewhere, as a masculine
sport. As gender roles are specific, and the understanding of what is accept-
able behavior for a female is restrictive, these pose additional barriers for
women interested in playing football. According to some of the female play-
ers, it was mainly the cultural expectations of society that made it challenging
for them to participate in organized competitive football. One woman who
had experience in the national team, club teams, and university teams,
explained that a lot of būyāt—women who dress and act in a way regarded as
masculine—would play football in the clubs; by joining, one would be called
a būya simply by association.73
Why is it a problem to be called a būya? That means you are gay, and you will
receive scrutiny for that. You will be called a būya for that [playing football in
the official clubs], būya, būya, būya, and then it travels around Qatar, which
happens in like two minutes. And everyone says, oh, that girl, she’s a būya, she
plays football. So that is why not a lot of girls want to join the clubs. If you get
called a būya, a lesbian, how would you get married?74
Aljohara recounts her initial experiences with professional football in
Qatar:
I can understand why people have the negative connotations, externally. I under-
stand why they have that, because when I was playing in the official league, there
were girls who looked like men, acted like men, who basically did it to prove a
stance to, like, kind of maintain their sexuality in a way. So, every person who
played in that league would be associated with that. Because there’s a majority
of them who do it … The first time I went, I saw a woman and I thought she was
a man and I was like: Why isn’t everyone covered up?? Fully shaved head, no
breast, no butt, I thought she was a guy! Her voice was so deep, she sounded like
a man. And then all of a sudden, I see a whole cult of them! And there are a lot
of them! It’s not people that I’m used to mixing with.75

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Amelie Le Renard encountered the concept of būyāt in her work on young

women in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She sees the būyāt as subverting a hegemonic
model of femininity. Although she writes that the practice is denounced in
different discourses relating to class, ethnicity, and religion, and that the per-
ceived masculinity of these women makes their fellow students question their
sexuality or associate them with lesbians—they do in fact in some cases engage
in relationships with other women—she argues that ‘owing to the absence of
men, women-only spaces and gatherings probably allow digressions from
dominant norms of femininity to be less violently repressed, and buyat are
visible and numerous.’76 Some of the būyāt Le Renard encountered were
indeed critical about the status of women in Saudi Arabia, and what they
experienced as limitations caused by a strict understanding of gender. Others
among the būyāt, however, saw their physical appearance as simply a trend.77
In the case of Qatar, the women who do not consider themselves to be
būyāt experience the label as a burden. In addition to the serious effect such a
perception could have on their chances of getting married, the women
expressed discomfort at being identified as a būya. Although the Qatari con-
text arguably makes such a label more troubling since breaking with gender
norms is indeed a taboo, similar findings appear in studies on women’s foot-
ball in other cultures.78
Even though some barriers for participation are present for both genders,
it becomes clear that most of the challenges facing Qatari female footballers
are not only gendered, but are also based on the customary Qatari understand-
ing of gender. There are strict cultural norms dictating how a woman is sup-
posed to behave, what she should wear, and what activities it is appropriate for
her to engage in. Thus, the example of being labeled a būya for participating
in organized, competitive football is telling: if you play football, you are by
definition no longer fully feminine.

University Teams as a Safe Space

Despite the negative connotations attached to being associated with a club or

the national team, and other barriers preventing women from joining, Qatari
women still play football. There is indeed a difference in how different types
of sporting activities are perceived. Activities related to health or wellness, like
running or weight lifting inside an all-women’s gym, would typically be the
least controversial. Competing on the national team, in a ‘masculine’ team
sport, would be close to impossible for a Qatari woman. Likewise, playing

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international games on the women’s national football team would be, cultur-
ally speaking, difficult, while playing football at home with other female
friends for fun is more likely to be accepted. In order to pursue organized,
competitive football, it is necessary for Qatari female footballers to negotiate
the expectations and norms of society in order to create a safe space.
The universities in Qatar’s Education City function as such spaces.
Education City is a campus on the outskirts of Doha composed of a number
of universities, including six American satellite universities and the Qatari
Hamad bin Khalifa University. The main language of instruction is English,
and the campus is not gender segregated, in contrast to the more traditional
Qatar University campus. This indicates that many Qatari students at
Education City likely come from less conservative families, and many of the
students come from private primary school backgrounds with international
curriculums. Most of the universities have a women’s football team, mainly
organized by the students themselves, driven by passionate individuals who
are seeking to find a way to participate in competitive football. The teams’
players are students, and are usually recruited by friends or classmates. These
activities have only been in operation for a few years and, since they still rely
on individual effort, the structures are fragile. However, they seem to be grow-
ing and, after a successfully executed tournament in the fall of 2016, there are
plans to continue developing the structures of female football in Education
City through cooperation with the Supreme Committee for Delivery and
Legacy, the local organizing committee of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.79
The teams were started by women who wanted an opportunity to play
organized, competitive football. These women had previously played football
in school or with friends and family, but did not see participation in official
teams as an option due to negative connotations associated with them, or due
to lack of time. They were not simply given an opportunity to play, but, rather,
worked for the opportunity to play; Alanood recounts how she used to strug-
gle with the university administration to find someone to support her team in
order to rent fields and apply for funding.80 Underlining the players’ role in
organizing practices and games, Haya noted that since all the players are
enrolled in the universities, this proximity allows them to plan for games and
practices in a way that does not get in the way of their educational obligations.81
In a similar manner, Hessa explained that for her to be part of the team, the
venues of play had to be gender segregated—a rule she said the players had
decided on together.82 When Amna in Student Affairs—not the department
that would normally organize sports events—got engaged in the female foot-

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ball league, one of her motivations was to organize it in a way that would feel
safe and comfortable for the players. This was in line with the ideas of the
already-active players, and was based on conversations with female students.83
The university teams can be understood as hybrid: they are not profes-
sional, nor are they simply for leisure. By taking charge of the organization, the
women can build teams that meet regularly in order to build a coherent team
identity. These teams further enable women to pursue the competitive aspect
of the sport, which is highlighted by many of the players as lacking when
engaging in leisure-oriented initiatives, such as playing with family and
friends. Since the teams are under the supervision of the universities, it
becomes easier for the sport to be accepted by their families; it becomes
viewed as a hobby, thus making it more accessible. For some women, it allows
them to not disclose the activity to their parents at all.84 As Stewart notes in
the case of female Palestinian players, they create a space where social norms
can be contested.85
In addition, organizing the events within Education City premises enables
transgression of the borders between private and public. The environment
where practices and matches are held is neither private nor public. Rather, the
universities offer a semi-private, semi-public space. By creating university
teams within these imagined borders of the university, the women create a safe
space where societal barriers can, to a large extent, be overcome. As one of the
players explains:
In some cases, it’s easier for the parents to be OK, it’s a university, you just play
against other universities and they are mostly your friends. And it’s closed off;
you are not exposed in the same way. The whole environment is different; it is
two different worlds.86
Framing the activities in the realm of the university also gives the women
the opportunity to organize practices and games in ways that accommodate
their class schedules. As the games are played on university premises, they do
not have to spend time traveling—something several interviewees emphasized
was a problem when taking part in official teams. Playing on university cam-
puses thus allows the women to organize games and practices in a way that
does not affect academic life. By associating the activity to their education—as
opposed to being an obstacle to it—they can convince their families that it is
a legitimate way to spend time, since not all of the girls have families who
support their football interest. In these cases, engaging with the sport at uni-
versity allows them to play without having to confront their parents.
Universities are trusted spaces and, therefore, it is less controversial for women

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to engage in these kinds of activities—this is the case for the girls themselves,
for their families, or for society in general.
In addition to less resistance from their families, organizing the activities
on university premises allows the female players to be less prone to exposure.
Instead of playing outside on a full-scale field, the women play futsal, indoor
football with five players on each team. This allows them to play in a more
protected and enclosed space, which makes it safer with regards to exposure
to males or the general public. This enclosure also allows them to play in more
practical attire, as they do not have to worry about exposing body parts they
would otherwise keep covered.
The example of Qatar’s Education City is interesting in this regard; the two
team sports mainly available to women are football and basketball. Basketball
is well established and run by the administration, making it generally better
organized and better attended. However, the female basketball teams consist
of mostly non-Qataris, as mentioned above, while the football players are
mostly Qatari. However, since the Qatari female football players organize
their own practices and tournaments, they have the opportunity to engage in
the game in a way that suits their needs. A player who grew up playing sports,
albeit not football, explained how this affected her choice:
By the time I moved to university, they offered football in an all ladies space. All
the practices and all the games would be female only, which was more motivat-
ing for me … Basketball is more popular, they have a proper league. But some-
times they would have a man ref and the matches are open to everyone, so I
wasn’t comfortable with that.87
Discussing the privacy and gendered spaces of Qatari homes, Rana Sobh and
Russell W Belk argue that because women are made to embody morality and
virtue in the local culture, gendered spaces in Qatari homes give women the
convenience of being uncovered. Respect for their privacy, they argue, is impor-
tant to the honor of the family. Privacy should thus be interpreted as respect
rather than seclusion, giving privacy a public function.88 In other words, gen-
dered spaces can serve to empower Qatari women, and to ‘reconcile the conflict-
ing demands of modernity and tradition.’89 Mitchell et al. similarly argue that
Qatari women use female-only gatherings to tackle issues related to conflicts
between traditional norms and increased possibilities for women in society.90
Playing on official teams is not an option for most of the women inter-
viewed. By adhering to the local tradition of segregation, and keeping their
activities within the safe space of universities, in both a metaphorical and a
physical sense, the women are creating an alternative arena, parallel to the

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official societal arena, in which to exercise their aspirations. Thus, Qatari

female footballers are negotiating the gendered expectations placed on them
by their families and society as a whole, while simultaneously engaging in
what Bayat terms ‘subversive accommodation.’91
It is important not to underestimate the workings of power in this case.
As Abu Lughod reminds us, by concentrating on finding resistance, under-
standings of power can be lost.92 Power structures do not simply disappear,
but are transferred into new relationships. Although the immediate effect
of the women’s efforts in their quest to play football is limited, it is, however,
far from insignificant. Writing on women’s continuous persistence through
ordinary activities in post-revolutionary Iran, Bayat argues that this ‘non-
movement’ made ‘considerable inroads, empowering women through educa-
tion, employment, and family law, and raised self-esteem.’93 Qatari female
footballers are indeed adhering to a number of established social norms that
limit their options for playing football but, instead of accepting that there
are no ways to play, they reclaim some control by creating ways to play. As
one woman argued:
I don’t think it [culture] is a barrier [to playing football in general], because we
still play. We can still amend the rules, we can say, OK, girls only, we can still
have a league; we can have refs, we can have all that. It doesn’t have to be open
to the public, to men. So, it can function. The love for the sport outweighs
everything. If you want it, you will do it.94
Secondly, by creating a space where their activities are not sanctioned, they
are also creating a space in which they can help redefine women’s football;
they do not adhere to the idea that one cannot be feminine and play football
at the same time. Although all of the women interviewed believe that Qatari
society is undergoing transformation, and that their initiatives were contribut-
ing to change, they all thought it would take time before playing openly would
be accepted. The women are what Mahmood terms ‘docile agents,’ exerting
their agency in the quest for a contextual freedom, rather than an explicitly
liberal one.95 Thus, playing, rather than playing professionally or openly in
public, is the objective for these women. One woman interviewed said she
believed there was a glass ceiling that needed to be broken by one generation
building upon the previous one, starting with the girls saying: ‘Hey! I’m a girl,
I can play football.’ She elaborated:
It is part of a change. It is an awakening. It is like the roots of the future. It’s like
planting a seed for a garden you will never see. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s
not going to be our generation that will see it.96

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Conclusion

By navigating limitations, some Qatari women have created a safe space for
their activities that allows them to bypass established norms regarding women
and femininity. These self-created spaces do not carry the same negative con-
notations of masculinity that the official clubs and the national team do, thus
allowing women to challenge the perception that it is not possible for a female
to play football, while at the same time preserving their femininity and adher-
ing to societal moral codes.
The university football teams, largely organized by the women themselves,
function as a hybrid. They are semi-private, semi-public spaces, and allow for
the girls to play organized competitive football, while at the same time avoid-
ing severe scrutiny. This is clear in the fact that while recruitment of Qatari
women is still challenging for teams operating in a public or non-segregated
space, the university football teams attract great interest from female students.
By relabeling women’s football a university activity, rather than something
that conflicts with their academic priorities, they enable themselves to play
football without getting into conflict with their family. The women are seek-
ing to gain a positive freedom to pursue their objectives, and reclaiming con-
trol in shaping their own lives.

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 5

SPORTSWOMEN’S USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE

MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA (MENA)

Nida Ahmad

Introduction

Social media has played a significant role in the Middle East and North Africa
(MENA), especially during the Arab uprisings, and its impact is far from
slowing down. The ongoing and developing events in the region—tensions in
the Gulf, humanitarian crises, and civil wars—are widely deliberated, and
discussions surrounding the instability of the region dominate news headlines.
These stories are being disseminated even more widely through social media.
The topic of social media has gained interest from a range of scholars across
disciplines keen to examine its use, significance, and impact on communities.
For many members of society, key aspects of our lives are mediated online, and
we are increasingly living a ‘digital life.’1 We share and consume information
via social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and Instagram, and
through various technologies like cell phones, laptops, and tablets that are
capable of monitoring important aspects of our lives, such as our health and
well-being.2 Research and discussion regarding social media use in the region

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

has tended to focus on civic, economic, political, and religious aspirations,3

with less consideration of the everyday uses of such platforms.4
The discussion on how women from the MENA region use social media
tends to be centered on political activism,5 fashion, and business uses, and how
they negotiate gender and faith according to their community.6 Digital plat-
forms allow some women from the region to negotiate social, cultural, and/
or religious norms, and to share their experiences through images and text.7
Discussion around how women from the region are negotiating social media
platforms for everyday purposes, particularly in relation to their sport and
physical activities, is lacking. Due to increased use of social media by women
in the region, this chapter addresses the following questions: what role does
social media play in constructing and representing female athletes’ sporting
lives? And what are the sociocultural implications of these representations?

Theoretical Framework: Identity Formation in Digital Spaces

According to Stuart Hall,8 understandings of identity must recognize it as

highly complex, encompassing gender, ethnicity, religious and social beliefs,
and class, and something that is constantly shifting. Furthermore, when it
comes to how identities are constructed, they are ‘within, not outside dis-
course.’9 Many sports media scholars have drawn upon Hall’s work to examine
the power relations involved in the production and consumption of sporting
representations and identities in particular historical contexts. However, fewer
have used his work to inform our understandings of the multiple forms of
power operating on and through individual and group identities in sporting
social media contexts.
It is important to examine how sport and social media construct, reinforce,
perpetuate, and challenge dominant perceptions and lived experiences of
identities. According to Hall, ‘identities are never unified, and, in late modern
times, increasingly fragmented and fractured; never singular but multiply
constructed across different, often intersecting and antagonistic, discourses,
practices and positions.’10 Yet, within Western media discourses, Muslim
women are often homogenized and categorized into either ‘positive’ or ‘nega-
tive’ representations.11 Furthermore, Western media often monolithically
represent women in the MENA region through stereotypical images or con-
tent, despite the cultural, religious, economic, and ethnic diversity present in
the region and between individuals. Women from the region are often repre-
sented as victims of their oppressive cultures and their male compatriots.

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 SPORTSWOMEN’S USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN MENA

Whereas such representations typically focus on the growth of discrimination

and the spread of racist, misogynistic, and sexist rhetoric, it is important to
note that the lives of women vary across and within countries, where political,
cultural, and social circumstances impact their experiences in varied ways and,
in this case, their sporting and social media activities.

Methods

Over the past few years, researchers around the world have been paying close
attention to the ways athletes use social media, with a growing number of
scholars focusing on these issues. Most of this literature has focused on
Twitter, with more recent scholarship examining the use of Instagram.12 As a
contribution to expanding the focus of the literature, this project examines
Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and SnapChat to understand how these plat-
forms are used by sportswomen from the region. With this aim, between
January and August 2017, I conducted a digital ethnography of the social
media accounts of twelve MENA sportswomen based in Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Iran, and across the four plat-
forms mentioned above. Digital ethnography is the observation of digital
space comprised of images, videos, and text showcasing the interactions of
individuals, communities, countries, and geographies.13
In addition to this digital ethnography, between April and August 2017, I
conducted semi-structured interviews in English with sportswomen aged 22
to 39.14 The diverse range of their backgrounds, experiences, identities, social
media practices, and lived experiences contributed to the richness of the data.
The sporting disciplines included combat sports, action sports (surfing, climb-
ing, and mountaineering), ‘traditional’ sports (basketball), fencing, CrossFit,
and those engaged in physical activity (runners). The sportswomens’ participa-
tion in sports varied; some were non-competitive but sports or physical activ-
ity were part of their routine, while others trained to compete at local,
national, and international levels. Furthermore, I monitored developing
political and cultural situations in the region through Google alerts and
Twitter’s ‘trending’ section, which allowed me to contextualize the partici-
pants’ background and to inform my interview and data.
As with any method, there are strengths and limitations to digital ethnog-
raphy. Although digital ethnography is rapidly gaining popularity across the
social sciences and humanities, issues have arisen relating to ethics. A particu-
larly controversial issue relates to covert online ‘lurking’ for research purposes.

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This is a highly contested topic since images, text, and other information
remain in public digital spaces and can be easily accessed by anyone without
consent, rather like a newspaper or magazine article. Some researchers have
embraced the covert possibilities of online research by ‘lurking’ in digital
spaces without consent.15 This raises ethical concerns regarding the rights of
those being observed and their need to know that their participation is being
recorded for research purposes.16 In acknowledgement of such ethical consid-
erations, I was overt about my role as a researcher. Prior to any digital observa-
tions, I gained consent from all participants who chose which platforms I
could follow for the purposes of this research. To protect the identity of par-
ticipants, pseudonyms are used throughout the chapter. Furthermore, I cre-
ated new accounts specifically for this research, and, while I was observing the
participants’ social media accounts, I limited my activity in terms of ‘liking’
and ‘commenting’ on images and tweets for the safety of all the participants,
and to ensure clarity of my role as a researcher. This allowed me to be mindful
of ethical issues and critical of the processes when examining the digital lives
of the sportswomen in question.

Social Media in the Middle East and North Africa

Due to the extent of its cultural impact, social media’s wide reach has attracted
the attention of researchers and practitioners from a range of disciplines.
There are different definitions of social media, such as new media and Web
2.0, but, for this research, I apply Ellison and Boyd’s definition:
A social network site is a networked communication platform in which partici-
pants 1) have uniquely identifiable profiles that consist of user-supplied content,
content provided by other users, and/or system-level data; 2) can publicly
articulate connections that can be viewed and traversed by others; and 3) can
consume, produce, and/or interact with streams of user-generated content pro-
vided by their connections on the site.17
This definition encompasses both online and offline connection and
engagement, and users’ ability to harness online platforms through ‘tags,’
‘likes,’ and ‘comments’ to construct, perform, and accentuate their identities.18
The ever-changing and fluctuating technology is part of the daily routine in
the everyday lives of so many, and the purposes of social media go beyond
sharing and consuming information; social media may contribute in impor-
tant ways to an individual’s sense of identity and belonging, to corporate and
organizational strategies, and to sports media production and consumption.

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Social media use is increasing in the Middle East and North Africa,
though popularity and accessibility vary across countries. In 2016, there were
approximately 21.4 million active users in the region, with the highest num-
bers found in the Gulf countries. For example, 75 percent of the population
of Qatar uses social media, 69 percent in the United Arab of Emirates, and
55 percent in Saudi Arabia.19 Digital technology is permeating different
aspects of individuals’ lives; digital spaces are creating opportunities for
political, cultural, and social conversations to occur, and they also facilitate
offline movements.20 The impact and importance of social media are being
recognized in the region, with some countries creating initiatives such as the
Arab Youth Media Initiative launched by the UAE’s Ministry of State for
Youth Affairs to prepare a young generation of media professionals to dis-
seminate Arab media content worldwide.21

MENA Women’s Use of Social Media

Conversations about social media in the MENA region are often associated
with the Arab uprisings, with some scholars arguing that the revolutions in
Tunisia and Egypt were led by Twitter and Facebook.22 There are ongoing
debates about how social media facilitated the revolutions as an instrument
enabling activists to harness digital technologies to share their stories, generate
public support, and raise awareness through images, texts, and tweets.23 It is
important to note that participation in digital spaces in the Middle East is not
exclusive to men, and that women are also at the forefront of digital spaces,
leading to online and offline activism. For example, Lina Ben Mhenni, an
internet activist from Tunisia, used her blog A Tunisian Girl, along with other
social media platforms, to document the protests occurring in her country via
the words and images she shared globally.24 Many discussions about Egyptian
women and social media during the Arab uprisings tended to portray them as
passive about protesting, which overlooked the different reasons for how and
why women were protesting.25
In many parts of the Middle East, social media had already been adopted
by women prior to the Arab uprisings. In Iran, women had embraced technol-
ogy and were using digital spaces to discuss issues relating to feminism, reli-
gion, gender-based discriminatory laws, and politics.26 Prior to Iran’s Green
Movement in 2009, women were using blogs and social media platforms to
collect signatures to address and change discriminatory laws.27 Their activism
did not stop there, and Iranian women employed the #WhiteWednesday

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

hashtag on Twitter and Instagram to promote gender equality during the

2017 presidential election. Another example involved Saudi women using
social media—Twitter, in particular—to start the #IAmMyOwnGuardian
hashtag in 2016 to oppose the strict law that requires Saudi women to seek
permission from a male guardian to take part in essential tasks like travel,
marriage, education, and work. Caving to intense social pressure, a royal
decree was passed in May 2017 giving Saudi women basic freedom, such as
allowing them to travel and study without gaining consent from male guard-
ians. Women from the region have started other online activist movements
through the use of social media, and, in particular, created specific hashtags to
raise awareness and make issues go viral.
Online spaces, such as blogs, allow women to practice solidarity and
agency,28 and to debunk assumptions held by outsiders. For example, to dis-
rupt Western media narratives that often assign Muslim women the status of
the ‘oppressed other,’ ‘hijab bloggers’ are harnessing digital spaces and sharing
aspects of their lives through fashion.29 Engagement in social media spaces
does, however, come with consequences and risks. Issues of online harassment,
racism, sexism, and even rape and death threats are common, and many female
bloggers encountered such threats especially during the Arab uprisings. More
recently, a Saudi woman raised controversy and became the subject of a call
for punishment because she was seen on SnapChat walking around an ancient
fort in Saudi Arabia in a short skirt and without hijab. The various aspects of
social media are essential conversations on the impact of individuals and com-
munities in the region. While none of the participants in this study explicitly
mentioned the Arab uprisings, it is important to note that, in this context,
sportswomen use social media in different ways, and often in close connection
to their community and culture.

Social Media and Sport in the Region

The scholarship surrounding sports and social media is increasing,30 and is

moving beyond discussions of sports management and branding to address
issues of how athletes are engaging with social media and their online self-
representation.31 To date, the discussion of social media and sports in the
MENA region is limited and, as of yet, there has been no examination of the
importance of social media in the lives of sportswomen from the region.
Technology use is a daily routine for many and goes beyond just sharing
and consuming information.32 Individuals can share personal narratives

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through text or images instantly, giving them a sense of identity and belonging
in digital spaces. Some researchers suggest that social media platforms allow
sportswomen to control visibility about themselves, to increase coverage of
their sport, and to share other aspects of their identity.33 This is significant
since it can disrupt gender narratives, especially as sportswomen have often
been trivialized or sexualized in the mainstream sports media for decades.34
Furthermore, digital platforms have proven to be valuable sources of solidar-
ity, especially for those from marginalized communities.35 Access to informa-
tion is creating a space where women from all over the world can connect and
share their experiences.36
Digital spaces and, in particular, social media platforms, have created
unique opportunities for a diversity of voices to be shared.37 However, how
sportswomen in the region are using social media is widely unexplored and
requires further research. The present study addresses these issues.

The Ways MENA Sportswomen use Social Media

My digital observations and interviews with sportswomen generated a range

of themes, but, for this chapter, I focus on 1) self-branding their sporting lives
in digital spaces, and 2) preservation of modesty in digital spaces. In so doing,
I draw upon international literature to consider how sportswomen from the
MENA region are engaging with social media in similar or different ways
from their international peers.

Self-Branding and Sporting Identities in Digital Spaces

As various scholars have shown, sportswomen tend to be marginalized, trivial-

ized, and sexualized in the mass media.38 Some have argued that social media
offers sportswomen valuable opportunities to self-represent and to offer alter-
native visions of their sporting lives. In doing so, social media creates unique
opportunities for sportswomen to self-brand by sharing particular aspects of
their lives online. Professional athletes in the United States and Europe have
been adept at using social media to share their journeys and training regimens,
through sometimes perfectly tailored and candid images that aid in attracting
sponsors.39 In my digital observations and interviews with sportswomen, those
who have public accounts explained how they used their social media plat-
forms to draw attention to themselves and their sport, to raise awareness about
particular issues, to gain followers for self-branding, or to inspire others. For

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example, Maya is a 30-year-old competitive CrossFit athlete and coach from

Kuwait. Even though she is a mother and was expecting her second child at
the time of this research, she continued to train throughout her pregnancy.
She not only shares her sporting journey on social media, but uses it to attract
clients. Speaking about why social media is important to her career as a trainer,
Maya stated that, ‘my Instagram account is not just a document of my journey,
it is kind of like I am advertising myself as trainer. A lot of my clients and
members, they come to the gym because they want to be coached by me.’40
Maya also discussed being sponsored by different local companies, such as
those that provide supplements to active individuals or athletes. As part of her
sponsorship agreement with one company, she was required to post ‘twice a
week’ about the brand on her social media account. She no longer works with
that brand, stating there was no specific reason for the departure; however, she
is currently sponsored by a health food company, about which she actively posts
on her Instagram stories because ‘I am showing them support because I am very
happy with their service, and its free food’, she said, laughing. When asked how
her relationships with sponsors emerged, she explained that she attracted a
range of opportunities because her Instagram account was ‘open’ to the public,
and because she was ‘consistently active,’ documenting her sporting journey
through images, text, use of hashtags,41 and engaging with followers. In 2016,
she was featured as one of the ‘influencers’ of her sport in a prominent maga-
zine in the region,42 and she is regularly included in ongoing major sporting
campaigns and events, such as those for Reebok and Nike in the MENA
region. Social media plays an important role in enabling athletes to develop
relationships with brands,43 and those who are able to successfully brand them-
selves gain higher salaries and progress in their athletic careers. This can be seen
with Maya and her use of Instagram, and there are plenty of other examples of
sportswomen from the region utilizing social media to that effect.44
Maintaining a business and attracting clients and/or potential sponsors is
not an easy task. Maya stated that she has to remain ‘consistent’ with the infor-
mation she posts, and often prepares ahead of time: ‘I will prepare something
in advance in case I get a day where I am too stressed or I am not in the mood.’
She further stated that it is not only important to remain ‘consistent’ but ‘it is
important to keep your followers engaged’, which is especially challenging
since Instagram has over 400 million daily users sharing over 40 billion
images.45 Maya further stated: ‘you will either be forgotten or people will lose
interest.’ To stay abreast of the developing changes in social media, such as new
features and trends, Maya participates in social media marketing courses to

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further develop her brand, sport, and gym. While Maya was the only partici-
pant to have taken online marketing courses, others mentioned seeking advice
from social media experts.
Another important aspect of social media usage is time spent posting or
engaging with followers. Athletes who successfully use social media for the
purposes of self-branding tend to spend a significant amount of time on social
media.46 The twelve participants in my study confirmed these findings. ‘I will
spend at least one hour or two hours on social media just either posting or
replying or checking’, stated Hiba, a 29-year-old Olympian.47 The same goes for
Dina, a 30-year-old mountaineer who is from the United Arab Emirates and
works in marketing, and for Shirin, a 33-year-old action sportswoman from
Iran who competes in national and international events and who works as a
brand and marketing influencer in her country.48 They both stated that they
spend ‘a lot of time’ posting content. Shirin has the upgraded business version
of Instagram, which allows her to analyze her Instagram posts. She notes, ‘I
look at which picture gets the most engagement, insights into the impression
of the post, and the time of day, week and stuff like that.’ This allows her to
strategically post her images and videos to reach a larger audience.
Maya, Hiba, Dina, and Shirin were not the only sportswomen spending a
significant amount of time on social media. Another participant, Sarah, a
33-year-old CrossFit trainer and competitor from Saudi Arabia stated that ‘it
takes me a good hour just to post one post.’ Sarah not only focuses on develop-
ing her brand via social media, she also uses it to ‘inspire’ men and women to
live an active lifestyle. Many of her videos show how she trains, what she eats
(healthy or not), what she wears (mostly sports clothes), and other sport-
related activities (such as speaking at public events). She uses hashtags like
#Nike, #Reebok, #Puma, along with #ArabWomen, #lifestyle, #sport, etc. to
reach a larger audience. For Sarah, social media is an important tool. Due to
limited opportunities in her country, she turned to social media to ‘market’
herself and build her brand. Her Instagram account and engagement with her
followers has given her opportunities such as working with the Ministry of
Youth and Sports to lead local fitness and/or sporting events, and she has been
featured in a well-known regional magazine along with several news articles
and video promos. Sarah is also aware of her audience and the uses and abuses
of social media. Sarah stated:
I understand how social media works. If someone wants to show their abs, or
show their whatever, just for more likes, then okay, but you can’t fool your true
followers for long. If you really want to inspire people, they will not get inspired
by your bum in the camera.49

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For her, the focus is not on the number of followers or ‘likes’, but more
about using social media to inspire other women through sports. Like many
of the sportswomen interviewed for this research, Sarah is aware of what oth-
ers post on social media but avoids mimicking movements or images based on
their sports, and refrains from posting ‘sexy selfies.’ These sportswomen share
images that are focused on their sport, their lifestyle, and their identity; they
shy away from the objectification/sexualization of their body, preferring to
share images in order to engage with their audience and build their brand.
As these examples suggest, sportswomen in the MENA region are actively
posting, sharing, and producing carefully considered content to share aspects
of their sporting identities for self-branding. This is interesting, since the lit-
erature about how sportswomen are using social media for self-branding has
mainly focused on Western women, many of whom embrace traditional
notions of heterosexual femininity—for example, with sexualized images of
their ‘bum in the camera’ or wearing revealing clothes to attract more audience
members.50 Some women are encouraged to celebrate their bodies as a ‘source
of power,’51 which, for some, is a form of empowerment to freely make a choice
and share aspects of their lives online.52 When sportswomen focus on their
heterosexual femininity they are likely to attract viewers, but their comments
sections are peppered with salacious and sexist remarks (for example, ‘nice ass’,
‘I’d bang that’), which do not suggest that they are being respected for their
athletic prowess or achievements. Despite sharing images that do not sexualize
their bodies, the women in this research were not exempt from receiving such
online comments. Some stated that they received private DMs (direct messag-
ing), asking for their hand in marriage and/or commenting on their looks (for
instance, ‘you are so beautiful’).
As previously stated, social media provides athletes with opportunities to
self-brand and self-represent. With the ability to personally craft images and
text, they can share aspects of their sporting identities with their audience.53
This allows them to develop relationships with stakeholders, fans, and poten-
tial sponsors,54 which is accomplished by the sportswomen in this research.
Even though some researchers have indicated that women are likely to be
more sexually expressive in their social media posts,55 this was not the case for
the sportswomen in this particular study; they stated that they kept their
culture and society in mind when they shared their sporting identities online.
The participants in this research avoided flaunting their scantily clad bodies, a
feature that is more common in posts of sportswomen from other regions.56
Furthermore, the participants were from conservative countries from the

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MENA region (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and
Iran), which largely contributed to their not posting overly sexualized images
of their sporting bodies. The participants demonstrated an awareness that they
did not have to use sexy images to gain followers or sponsors. However, many
found themselves entering careful deliberations about what and how to post.
For some, such as Sarah and Dina, this evoked a ‘double identity crisis’
between the cultural expectations of their sporting codes and the cultural
rules and norms of their communities.
Social media allows MENA sportswomen to share images and text, and to
express and share parts of their identity often restricted by cultural, religious,
and societal norms. Athletes who use digital media are able to counteract
negative portrayals of their image commonly found in mass media representa-
tions.57 This seems to be the case for MENA sportswomen who use social
media to challenge dominant media portrayals of them as the ‘oppressed
other’, which is often associated with Arab/Muslim sportswoman.

‘I Will Not be a Martyr, it is Not My Battle to Fight’: Preserving Family or

Community Honor while Maintaining Online Sporting Identity

As previously stated, mainstream Western media tend to portray women from

the MENA region as oppressed by cultural and religious norms.58
Furthermore, when it comes to the coverage of sportswomen, media represen-
tations tend to be stereotyped and focused on aspects of their identity outside
of sport.59 However, social media provides opportunities for sportswomen to
bypass the traditional media framing of their identities by giving them the
power to choose which aspects of their identity they want to share,60 allowing
individuals to sustain relationships with family, friends, and strangers.61
For many of the sportswomen in this project, family and/or community
relations were important. Each of the athletes interviewed spoke about sup-
portive parents inspiring them to pursue their athletic endeavors, even in
sports deemed culturally inappropriate. Some of the participants engage in
sports dominated by men, and commented on the important roles played by
their fathers in supporting their sporting pursuits. For example, Dina stated
that ‘a female mountaineer is rare, so the point of my focus on Instagram is
trying to not just influence other girls.’ Continuing, she explained that she
uses her account to connect with other women in her country and region,
while at the same time showcasing her athletic abilities to attract ‘local spon-
sors’ and ‘promote the sport.’ Shirin has a similar approach, and uses her

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Instagram account to promote her sport—which falls in the category of action

sports such as surfing, climbing, BMX, snowboarding, skateboarding, and
parkour, and which is often ignored in her country. Additionally, stories of her
accomplishments are rarely mentioned. To bring awareness to the sport, Shirin
recently used social media to showcase her success by taking screenshots of her
‘ranking’; she noted that when ‘people saw the flag and my name’, she received
messages of support and new followers. More importantly, Shirin was able to
share a different narrative about herself, her sport, and even her society with
international followers.
Social media aids athletes who participate in lesser-known sports to
increase awareness of the sport, which can be seen in the cases of Dina and
Shirin.62 However, another participant, Lamya, a 34-year-old action sports-
woman and digital media influencer who runs her family’s business, refuses to
take part in any opportunity that would feature her as the first woman from
Saudi Arabia to participate in her sport. She turned down multiple requests,
and when asked why, she simply stated ‘I will not be a martyr.’ She listed her
family as one of the reasons for not taking part. Lamya stated that sport ‘is an
important cause, and yes, it is something I need to fight for, but to me my
family is more important.’ She also said that she has nothing to ‘prove’ and
prefers to focus on other aspects of her life, such as building her brand, which
is not related to sports, but features her sporting lifestyle, and her family busi-
ness. Lamya has no interest in ‘hurting’ her family and their ‘reputation,’ par-
ticularly her father who has ‘worked hard’ to develop his reputation in the
industry. Importantly, she also said that she was wary of any ‘negative’ conse-
quences on the family and the ‘people around you.’ She was hinting at a pos-
sible backlash from extended family members and even the wider community
who might comment that a woman should not be participating in sport, or
that it is not culturally or religiously appropriate for a woman to take part in
sports at all, or those who might say things like ‘you know these kids were not
raised right and they do not represent this country.’ Raha Moharrak, the first
Saudi woman to summit Mount Everest, faced similar criticisms as well as
online and offline ‘disagreements’ from family members and Saudis in gen-
eral.63 Family is an integral part of the MENA sportswomen’s lives, especially
when they have been supported (financially and/or emotionally) in their
sporting pursuits. For this reason, they keep their family in mind when they
post aspects of their sporting identities.

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Conclusion

Social media is changing the ways that sports are consumed, discussed, and
debated. The body of scholarship examining how athletes are using social
media and adapting it for personal and professional use is growing quickly.
Since the literature to date mostly focuses on Western sportswomen, this
chapter adds to the discussion of how sportswomen are using social media by
including voices of sportswomen from the Middle East. The available research
shows how Western sportswomen use social media for self-branding, offering
intimate details of their lifestyles, and often revealing images of their bodies.64
In contrast, the women in this research carefully consider what and how they
share with their audiences, applying different strategies to safely and effectively
navigate the digital terrain. For the women in this study, issues of family and
culture are central to their digital decision-making. When it comes to discus-
sion of gender and sports in the region, much of the focus has been on the
limited opportunities for women and girls, and the Olympic achievements of
a select few.65 By expanding the discussion to include digital platforms, this
research allows for an understanding of the various ways sportswomen in the
region are using their social media platforms for self-branding in a culturally
considered manner. Additionally, this opens up an avenue for further research
on the role of social media in influencing women’s participation and opportu-
nities in sport in the region, as well as more studies on non-Western sports-
women’s use of social media.

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 6

THE WORLD CUP AND FREEDOM OF

EXPRESSION IN QATAR

Craig L. LaMay

Introduction

Much has been written about sporting mega-events and human rights in the
countries that host them, but very little on how these events affect rights of
expression and publication. The subject of this paper is the effect, if any, that
sporting mega-events, and especially the 2022 FIFA World Cup, will have on
Qatar’s environment for free expression and journalistic independence. Qatar,
an Arab Gulf state and a member of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council
(GCC),1 is both deeply traditional and aggressively modern, and has made
sport a centerpiece of its long-term development strategy.2 In 2015, for exam-
ple, the country played host to fifty-five international sporting competitions,
and an additional forty-three regional and local ones.3 Qatar is also an abso-
lute monarchy with a tightly controlled media sector. The country’s media
market consists almost entirely of state-owned or state-affiliated firms, and
publishers require a license to operate; the only arguably independent news
organ, the online and unlicensed Doha News, has been blocked in the country

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since late 2016.4 The country’s media laws, discussed below, all include crimi-
nal penalties for everything from copyright violations to defamation, a feature
of a restrictive media system. A representative measure of Qatar’s standing in
the world is its ranking in the Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) 2017 World
Press Freedom Index, where it sits at 123 out of 180 countries—down from a
high of 74 in 2003.5
At the same time, on matters of free expression, Qatar is arguably the most
progressive member of the GCC. Most famously, it is home to a leading
international television news operation, Al Jazeera, for which it is reviled by
other Arab states, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—
both of which, as of this writing, have demanded Al Jazeera be closed as one
of thirteen conditions for ending a blockade of the country they instigated
in June 2017. In response, Qatar has since hosted a major international con-
ference on free expression and published the record of that conference;6 its
foreign minister has spoken publicly on free expression rights at Chatham
House in the United Kingdom;7 and the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al
Thani, has appeared on a major US television news program (‘60 Minutes’)
in which he emphasized the importance of media freedom to his legacy and
the country’s future.8
So which way do the winds blow? Assuming Qatar succeeds in hosting the
2022 World Cup—the continuing Saudi-led blockade means that the games
would be played in a conflict zone, and the Saudi leadership is undergoing
dramatic change, raising tensions in the wider region—what would the com-
petition mean for Qatar’s media environment? The World Cup is, with the
Summer Olympics, one of the two biggest global media events, and hosting it
will make Qatar a focus of intensive world media coverage. International jour-
nalists will want to report not only on the games, but on Qatar itself.
On the one hand, the record of other recent sporting mega-events argues
that Qatar’s World Cup will have no effect on the environment for independ-
ent media in the country. The 2008 Beijing Olympics, for example, changed
China’s media regime not a bit, despite assurances from Chinese authorities
and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that there would be
changes. In a world where Western countries now often decline to host sport-
ing mega-events, the more autocratic ones that are willing to host these tour-
naments have little incentive to care about the criticisms of outsiders. What
realistic expectations does anyone have, for example, that Russia will improve
its human rights performance—or liberalize its state-controlled media
regime—as a result of hosting the World Cup in 2018?

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Yet Qatar is not China or Russia. Much more than other states in the
region, it has been relatively open to its critics, including international human
rights NGOs (nongovernmental organizations). Qataris themselves feel free
to discuss and voice their opinions about public affairs, among themselves if
not publicly; ‘Western’ ideas about human rights and free expression are, if
not accepted, acceptable for debate. Qatar’s constitution has an explicit free
speech provision. Finally—and importantly, given the focus of this paper—
Qatar’s modernization strategy rests on the four pillars of sport, education,
media, and art, which are all fundamentally expressive enterprises.
Of these, none draws international media attention like sport. After com-
pletion of the 2018 Russia World Cup, Qatar is beginning to brand and pro-
mote the 2022 tournament, and the country will come under renewed
pressure from international human rights groups and international news
organizations to clarify its rules for media practice. In 2019, Qatar is host to
the World Athletics Championships, a major event in the run-up to the 2020
Tokyo Olympics. Accredited news organizations will want to cover these
events, but so will non-accredited and un-accredited media wanting to cover
the competitions and the country itself. How will Qatar respond? Will inter-
national media enjoy greater freedoms than domestic media before and during
the games? Will domestic media enjoy greater freedom to report than they do
now? If reporting norms or laws do liberalize, what changes will last and what
will be temporary?
The author predicts—cautiously, given the volatile mix of Gulf state politics
and the business of world football—that Qatar will continue to liberalize its
media laws if only because it has to. The existing media law, dating from 1979,
is long obsolete; it makes no mention of electronic media of any kind, for
example, and gives authority to government ministries that no longer exist.
Despite the difficulties of doing independent reporting in Qatar, the overall
direction of media freedom in the country is arguably positive at a time when
in much of the rest of the world, including in the United States, it is arguably
negative. The 2017 RSF Index that rates Qatar so poorly, for example, rates
the United States at 43rd (and falling) behind several developing and non-
Western countries like Surinam, Samoa, Namibia, Ghana, South Africa, and
Burkina Faso.
Significant change in Qatar’s media environment will take a generation or
more and will proceed along lines that make sense to Qataris. To be fair, ‘press
freedom’ has no universal meaning even among Western democracies. In any
comparative discussion of press freedom, the problem is what to measure and

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how, and most measures are incomplete in the sense that they consider
inputs—the structure of the press, how it is regulated, its place in the political
system—and not outputs—how citizens actually understand and use the
information they receive.9 At the same time, international norms concerning
restrictions on press freedom do exist.10 At a minimum, media freedom is not
possible where there is government or monopolistic control over the instru-
ments of mass communication. Free media systems do not license journalists
or imprison them for reporting and publishing content the government finds
objectionable. Qatar, like all of the GCC countries, falls short on each of these
basic measures.
One indication of the future of Qatar’s media environment comes from
the author’s conversations with newspaper editors in the country.11 The state
of media law in the country is obviously important to journalism practice,
but economic factors matter more. Because all domestic news media in
Qatar are in some measure state-subsidized, they are, if not profitable busi-
nesses, secure ones. Qatar could dramatically liberalize its press laws tomor-
row and the print media would have no economic incentive to change how
or what they report, never mind to test the boundaries of government toler-
ance. It is as true in Doha as it is in New York or London that there is good
money in bad journalism.

Qatar, the World Cup, and ‘Soft Disempowerment’

A Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup

provides a host country ‘exceptional opportunities to construct new, author-
ized, brand identities before their own citizens and global audiences.’12 The
combination of global media coverage and hoped-for legacies are among the
defining characteristics of what social scientists call a mega-event,13 and have
been promoted as a form of what political scientist Joseph Nye calls ‘soft
power,’ defined as ‘the ability to get what you want through attraction rather
than coercion or payments.’14 For Qatar, sport tourism is one part of a soft
power strategy that includes arts, education, and media,15 but a World Cup
is something else. The tournament is rivaled only by the summer Olympic
Games as the world’s most-watched television program, and Qatar’s success-
ful bid has brought the country both new attention and intense criticism.16
Brannagan and Giulianotti call such negative consequences of hosting a
sporting mega-event soft disempowerment, ‘the loss of attractiveness or
influence’ that can result from international scrutiny.17 The risk of soft dis-

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empowerment is that hosts might ‘lose more than they can gain in terms of
destination image.’18
In Qatar’s case, soft disempowerment began almost immediately after the
country was awarded the World Cup in December 2010. The international
sporting press sneered at the country’s pretensions to football status despite
Qatar’s enormous financial investments in European football, which have only
increased since 2010.19 In May 2011, news reports appeared claiming that
Qatar had paid more than $1 million to African FIFA officials in return for
their votes.20 In 2015, FIFA announced that the 2022 tournament would be
moved to the winter months to avoid Qatar’s brutal summer heat, in direct
conflict with the European football season.21 Then, in November 2017, a wit-
ness in the criminal trial of three former FIFA officials in a US district court
testified that Qatar paid an Argentinian football executive $1 million for his
World Cup vote.22
Without question, much of the international press coverage of Qatar’s
football ambitions has been one-sided. Research shows that national media
tend to cover sporting mega-events as members of the cultures in which they
reside, and the Western press has consistently portrayed Qatar as a football
interloper.23 The British press, in particular, has been relentless in criticizing
Qatar’s suitability as a World Cup host, in some measure presumably because
Britain was a losing bidder for the 2022 tournament.24 As a later investigation
by former US Department of Justice Attorney Michael Garcia showed, Britain
was as willing as Qatar to provide inducements to FIFA officials when they
demanded them.25 Indeed, the Garcia report made clear that bribery infected
FIFA’s negotiations with all countries, simply because the process was so non-
transparent. If there is a moral cancer in world football, Qatar is not its source.
As of this writing, more than forty former FIFA officials have been indicted
for fraud and other crimes by the US Department of Justice, two have been
convicted in jury trials, and more than twenty others have pleaded guilty.26
Nonetheless, the international media portrayal of Qatar began to change
after 2010. Previously, the country had been covered mostly favorably in
Western media as an enlightened outpost of modernity in the Middle East.
After the World Cup announcement, a new depiction of Qatar emerged as a
conservative Muslim autocracy, indifferent and even hostile to democracy and
the rule of law. Most significantly, Qatar has been vilified by international
human rights organizations for its kafala labor system, so much so that, in
2015, FIFA commissioned a report by Harvard Professor John Ruggie to assess
living and working conditions for Qatar’s huge immigrant labor population.27

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Most Western media portrayals of Qatar, including those by international

human rights NGOs, are incomplete representations of a complex place. The
award of the World Cup has advanced conversations within Qatar about sen-
sitive subjects such as citizenship and naturalization, freedom of expression,
and rule of law more generally. Journalist James Dorsey writes that Qatar has
‘worked with human rights and trade union activists in shaping internation-
ally accepted living and working standards for migrant workers who account
for a majority of its populations’, and ‘it has allowed activists to do independ-
ent research and launch their hard-hitting critical reports at news conferences
in Doha.’28 At the same time, Qatar has made international news by arresting
foreign journalists (from the United Kingdom and Germany) and domestic
ones who have attempted to report on World Cup stadium construction.29
More widely, write two scholarly critics of FIFA, the Qatar World Cup
award ‘has had broad and permanent consequences for the international gov-
ernance of sport.’30 Where once protests around sporting mega-events were
mostly state-based boycotts and domestic demonstrations, protests by trans-
national networks now focus on the ‘international sport nongovernmental
organizations (ISNGOs)’ that own the rights to and profit from the tourna-
ments, and range across ‘an increasingly broad range of issues’, such as human
rights, poverty, and the environment.31 Not just the IOC and FIFA, but other
ISNGOs, have been accused of offenses against rights of labor, women, gay/
lesbian/transgender athletes, children, indigenous peoples, and the poor, to
name a few. One legal scholar has described sporting mega-event venues as
‘law exclusion zones.’32 Indeed, for all the criticism directed at Qatar, the prob-
lem of human rights in international sport begins with the failures of the
ISNGOs that run that world.

Sporting Mega-Events and Human Rights

Governance of international sport resides overwhelmingly in the

International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Federations
(IF). The most important IF is FIFA, the governing body for football, the
world’s most popular sport. In their charters, both the IOC and FIFA use
language that aligns closely with the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights. The Olympic Charter is more explicit in this regard than
FIFA’s, noting that ‘Olympism is a philosophy of life’ that promotes ‘respect
for universal fundamental ethical principles.’33 The charter states that ‘the
practice of sport is a human right’ connected to ‘the preservation of human

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dignity,’ and that ‘any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a

person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompat-
ible’ with the Olympic movement.34 In 2014, the IOC entered a formal
accord with the United Nations to align its charter values with the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.35
Similarly, articles 2, 3, and 4 of the FIFA statutes include language regard-
ing ‘humanitarian values,’ and FIFA has a commendable history of human
rights stands. In 1961, it was the first international sporting body to impose
sanctions on South Africa. In 2001, FIFA’s ‘Buenos Aires Resolution’ publicly
committed the organization to antidiscrimination and launched its continu-
ing ‘Say No to Racism’ campaign. FIFA has also made alliances with United
Nations bodies, including the International Labor Organization and the UN
High Commissioner for Refugees. In 2013, following a series of ugly racial
incidents on and off the pitch, FIFA launched an Anti-Racism and
Discrimination Taskforce that includes in its membership a representative of
the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.36
Today, the FIFA statutes explicitly prohibit ‘discrimination of any kind
against a country, private person or group of people on account of … ethnic,
national or social origin, gender, … language, religion, political opinion’ or any
other reason.37 In its mission statement, FIFA states that its core values are
authenticity, unity, performance, and integrity. A key component of integrity,
the statement says, is transparency.38 The values are to support FIFA’s three
pillars: to develop the game, touch the world, and build a better future. The
organization’s commitment to social and human development, it says, is
accomplished ‘by strengthening the work of dozens of initiatives around the
globe to support local communities in the areas of peacebuilding, health,
social integration, education and more.’39
In February 2016, in response to the FIFA-commissioned Ruggie report
that focused in significant part on Qatar’s human rights record, FIFA added
an additional article on human rights to its statutes.40 Ruggie recommended
that FIFA embed the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and
Human Rights into its own policies and practices, and that ‘FIFA include
human rights within its criteria for evaluating bids to host tournaments and
should make them a substantive factor in host selection.’41 The problem with
this commitment is that sporting mega-events are increasingly located in
illiberal or even authoritarian countries, in part because more democratic
countries, and more developed ones, increasingly do not want them.42 Where
voters are given a chance to weigh in on a bid, they often reject it.43 The

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result, in some cases, is that the only bidders left are illiberal states. For exam-
ple, Beijing and Almaty were the only bids for the 2022 Winter Olympic
Games after Munich, Oslo, Stockholm, and Krakow were forced out by vot-
ers. Beijing won, thus becoming the first city to host both a summer and
winter Olympics.44
The appeal of sporting mega-events to illiberal states is presumably the
international recognition and status that comes from hosting them. Economic
reasons may also play a role, but there is wide agreement among economists
that as a tool for economic growth, sporting mega-events are poor invest-
ments. With a few exceptions, they cost far more than they return; worse, they
are often beset by charges of financial corruption and fraud.45 But as vehicles
for national promotion on an international stage, politicians understandably
see the Olympics and the World Cup as singular opportunities, and, in that
respect, their value is arguable but incalculable.46 Among recent or scheduled
sporting mega-events in illiberal countries are the 2014 Winter Olympics in
Sochi, Russia; the 2015 European Games (athletics) in Baku, Azerbaijan; the
2015 International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World
Championships and the 2022 Winter Olympics, both in Beijing; the 2018
FIFA World Cup in Russia; and the 2019 IAAF World Championships and
the 2022 FIFA World Cup, both in Qatar. What critics find alarming about
these venue decisions is the signal they convey about the place of human rights
in international sport,47 especially when they come from the IOC and FIFA,
which are singular among ISNGOs for their riches, their aspirational charters,
their political power, and their global influence.48
Many critics, both in the academy and in sports media, go further to argue
that the IOC and FIFA are themselves illiberal bodies.49 Their leaders have on
occasion made public statements that seem to confirm those criticisms. In
2013, famously, FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valke mused in front of a
room full of reporters that ‘less democracy is sometimes better for organizing
a World Cup … When you have a very strong head of state who can decide, as
maybe Putin can do in 2018 … that is easier for us organizers than a country
such as Germany … where you have to negotiate at different levels.’50
FIFA’s public image has been especially battered. Arguably, the low
moment came in May 2015, when agents from the US Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Swiss police rounded up fourteen FIFA-related figures
in Zurich on US indictments for racketeering, fraud, and money laundering,
alleging crimes dating to 1991.51 Those indictments came almost five years
after the December 2010 decision, taken in a single FIFA Congress, to award

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the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar, respectively. Shortly after
that announcement, amidst allegations of bribery, FIFA expelled two execu-
tive committee members, one of them Mohamed bin Hammam, a Qatari and
president of the Asian Football Confederation. Finally, new and broader
accusations of corruption within FIFA emerged in 2016 with revelations from
the Panama Papers, a leaked cache of more than 11 million documents from
the law firm Mossack Fonseca.52

Sporting Mega-Events and Expressive Rights

In the growing international criticism of the IOC and FIFA, relatively little
has focused on offenses against expressive rights, including those of journalists,
by ISNGOs, host cities, and countries.53 Especially because sporting mega-
events are by definition media events, this seems odd, but there is economic
logic to it: the organizers of sporting mega-events and the accredited media
that cover them share a financial interest in the games’ success. As a media
product, sport is, above all, valuable commercial property, sporting mega-
events especially so. In an otherwise fragmented media universe, sport, along
with film, is the only content that still aggregates large audiences; unlike film,
sport is almost always consumed live—and with younger audiences watching
on multiple, simultaneous platforms—so it is uniquely valuable to sponsors
and advertisers.
But the media world that made the IOC and FIFA rich and powerful has
changed. Digital media have completely scrambled long-standing relation-
ships between media firms, sports firms, athletes, and fans. The most signifi-
cant change is that virtually all sports firms—from ISNGOs themselves to
sports leagues and individual clubs—are now also media firms.54 All have their
own channels to which they wish to drive audiences, and so as a condition of
access they will often impose on news organizations restrictions on the real-
time posting of scores, photos, and videos.
Social media are especially disruptive. For sports firms, the challenge has
been how to wade into this milieu without damaging existing relationships
with more traditional media. Even as they attempt to control access to their
valuable property and the exclusive rights of sponsors, broadcasters, and other
licensees, they are awash in competition from fans, athletes, and bloggers
who—in addition to posting their own stories, photos, and videos of competi-
tions—will also appropriate and distribute licensed content on social media
platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. In that sharing environment,

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sports firms and their rights-holders have less control than ever over the nar-
ratives that surround their events, their products, and their brands.55
The difficulty that sports firms have in this media environment is trying to
separate their legitimate concerns about the commercial value of their intel-
lectual property from the legitimate purposes of journalism and social protest.
Bylaw 48 of the IOC Charter, for example, states the IOC’s commitment to
media coverage that will ‘promote the principles and values of Olympism’—a
commitment that also binds the host city. It then goes on to forbid ‘any ath-
lete, coach, official’, or other participant to ‘act as a journalists, or reporters or
in any other media capacity.’56 Article 50 of the charter further prohibits any-
one who enters an Olympic venue from doing, saying, or wearing anything
that can be construed as advertising or publicity, or any ‘kind of demonstra-
tion or political, religious or racial propaganda.’57 From a commercial point of
view, restrictions like these are understandable, but the problems with the
language are nonetheless obvious for an organization that celebrates human
rights, including expressive rights. They are also unrealistic: athletes at the
Olympics and virtually all sporting events now routinely record their experi-
ences there and post that material to their social media sites. Fans do the same.
In 2008, the IOC attempted to reconcile with this reality by issuing its first
guidelines for ‘social and digital media,’ in which it wishfully asserted that
social media posts are a ‘legitimate form of personal expression and not a form
of journalism.’58 In 2012, and again in 2016, the IOC guidelines noted that any
participant or accredited person can post in a ‘personal’ blog or tweet in the
‘first-person’, which does not constitute journalism;59 apparently, a posting
becomes ‘journalism’ when it is posted in the third-person.60 This is not how
journalism works. A first-person posting by an athlete, even a personal one, is
newsworthy precisely because of its unique point of view. And what about a
third-person post by an athlete that is not about the sport event itself, but
something tangential to it? And what about fundamental rights of conscience?
What does the IOC charter mean for an athlete who wishes to use the world’s
focus on a mega-event to express personal views on a controversial subject?61
Presumably, the primary concern for sports rights-holders in the digital
media ecosystem is not critical reporting, but the republishing and repurpos-
ing of their exclusive content on mobile platforms; the loss of value in that
content from the posting of user-generated content; the loss of exclusive
value to sponsors and damage to their brands; and outright ambush market-
ing.62 A sports firm, like any other, is required to protect its intellectual prop-
erty, an endeavor that can appear as (and sometimes is) bullying. Nor is the

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IOC alone in trying to navigate the user-driven media environment. Popular

sports from cricket to rugby have struggled to protect the financial value of
their games, while also meeting the expectations of fans and sport journalists
in digital space.63
For sporting mega-events like the Olympics or World Cup, however, the
problem with restrictive media policies is that they undermine the larger mes-
sage the sponsoring organizations say they want to convey, that sporting mega-
events are not just sports events but social movements. If they are, citizens
everywhere will want to cover and comment on them freely. That coverage will
focus not just on the sport body, such as FIFA, but also on the hundreds of
subcontractors in its supply chains. FIFA’s 2015 Ruggie report on Qatar and
Russia will further ensure that sporting mega-events will become a focus of
human rights reporting. The report begins by questioning the human rights
bona fides of both countries, and notes that all World Cup host governments
have the ‘primary obligation to respect, protect and fulfill human rights.’64
If so, it follows that the games and their hosts will increasingly also become
the focus of media freedom advocates. Qatar 2022 will be a test for what is
possible. The Russians may not care what the world thinks about them, but,
for reasons of national pride, regional security, and international standing, the
Qataris do.65 Before and during the 2022 Cup, international media will want
access to venues throughout the country, and to public officials, and will
want to report freely. Importantly, non-sporting and unaccredited media will
cover the 2022 World Cup precisely as Qatar has proposed them—as a meas-
ure of its standing in the world. How Qatar deals with these different media,
how and whether it seeks to control the narratives that develop before and
during the games, will be a test of its still unfolding ideas about press freedom
and practice.

Qatar’s Media Law and Practice, and the Consequences of Sport Diplomacy

By several objective measures, Qatar’s media environment is progressive. It has

one of the highest rates of internet use in the world—96 percent of house-
holds are connected—and one of the highest mobile phone penetration rates,
at 80 percent.66 The country is also home to a world-class journalism school,
Northwestern University in Qatar, and to a growing journalism program at
Qatar University. The Josoor Institute, a program of the government’s
Supreme Committee for Legacy and Delivery, offers seminars intended to
inform and encourage professional reporting, including reporting related to

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the World Cup.67 Doha is home as well to the Doha Center for Media
Freedom, established in 2008 under the auspices of the Qatar Foundation to
promote press freedom in the region. Article 47 of Qatar’s 1971 Constitution
guarantees freedom of expression and opinion,68 and Qatar is pledged to
respect the right to free expression under article 32 of the Arab Charter on
Human Rights, to which it is a party. In addition, it is home to Al Jazeera, a
major international news organization that, significantly, does virtually no
domestic news coverage.
Indeed, it is in the domestic news environment where Qatar comes in for
criticism. Two international media freedom indices, Freedom House and
Reporters Sans Frontières, both rate Qatar as not free; in 2016, Qatar fell
from ranking 104 to 117 out of 180 countries in the RSF index, then fell to
ranking 123 in 2017.69 In 2009, the director of the Doha Center for Media
Freedom was critical of the government for not issuing visas to foreign jour-
nalists threatened in their own countries.70 Later that year, he resigned after
being held responsible for a visit by Danish newspaper editor Flemming Rose,
who, in 2005, created controversy by publishing cartoons depicting the
Prophet Muhammad in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper. Rose came to Doha as
part of a UNESCO-sponsored conference at the center, but the event angered
many Qataris in and out of government. In response, the country’s Advisory
Council passed a new media law in 2009 that provided criminal penalties for
journalists who slander the emir, the religion, or the constitution of Qatar.
That law was never implemented.71 The Doha Centre for Media Freedom took
on a new director, who was dismissed in 2013 after the organization published
an overview of media laws within the GCC countries—a report that described
all of them in essentially the same terms as Freedom House and RSF did.72
Though Article 47 of the Qatar constitution provides for freedom of
expression, the critical qualifying phrase in the provision, as with media laws
everywhere, says ‘in accordance … with law,’ and Qatar has multiple restric-
tions in its media law, penal code, and cybercrime law that weigh heavily on
speech and press freedoms. For print publications in Qatar, the law requires a
license to operate. The license requires publishers to pay guarantees against
any future fines,73 and all licensees must be Qatari nationals.74 Foreign journal-
ists working in the country must be accredited by the Qatar Foreign
Information Agency, sponsored by a local institution (like Al Jazeera) or by
the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage;75 the great majority of journalists
working in Qatar’s media, including at Al Jazeera, are in fact non-Qataris.
The government can require corrections for news stories it finds false or
misleading if they offend the ‘public interest,’ and a publication can be sus-

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pended for a maximum of three months if it publishes items contrary to the

public interest.76 Article 47 of the 1979 media law allows for prior restraints;
publication of material that criticizes the emir or attributes statements to him
without official permission are subject to criminal penalty under both the
media law (Article 46) and the penal code. Finally, Article 47 includes a list of
banned subjects that cannot be part of any publication: anything that incites
or advocates the overthrow of the governing regime or offends it, or causes any
damage to the ‘supreme interests of the country’; anything that might harm
the reputation of a person, his/her legacy, or commercial interests; anything
that would give ‘offense to public morals.’ Violations include both fines and
possible imprisonment.
Qatar has, for almost a decade, promised a new press law but none has been
enacted. A draft revision was proposed in 2010, revised and proposed again
in 2012, and has yet to come into effect.77 The draft media law includes some
significant reforms: it proposes to eliminate criminal libel and to prohibit
officials from questioning journalists without a court order.78 Though it abol-
ishes criminal charges for criticizing the country’s rulers, it still prohibits the
publication of information that would ‘throw relations between the state and
the Arab and friendly states into confusion’—a clause that has been unoffi-
cially but effectively suspended with the beginning of the Saudi-led block-
ade—or that ‘abuse the regime or offend the ruling family or cause serious
harm to the national or higher interests of the state.’79
Criminal laws are suspect in any media system, and Qatar’s penal code has
several provisions affecting journalism. Article 34 criminalizes criticism of the
emir. Articles 326 and 327 establish criminal penalties for defamation, with
added penalties for defaming a ‘public employee.’ Article 331 provides crimi-
nal penalties for privacy violations, specifically, ‘spreading news, photos or
comments related to secrets of private life, or families, or individuals even if
they were true.’ Article 256 criminalizes blasphemy.80 Finally, Qatar’s 2014
Cybercrime law includes additional criminal penalties, both fines and jail
time, for defamation made in public or private communications.81
Against all this, the only certain thing that can be said of Qatar’s media
environment is that its limitations are likely to become an issue when the
world’s media renew their focus on the country after the conclusion of the
2018 World Cup in Russia. Media coverage of a sporting mega-event has
predictable phases and emphases. It begins with the award of the games (Qatar
was awarded the FIFA 2022 World Cup in December 2010) and, as Qatar has
learned, follows immediately with stories about the moral worthiness of the

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host.82 News coverage then follows the years of preparation for the tourna-
ment, including the development of physical and administrative infrastruc-
ture, and gets most intense in the immediate few months before the
competition begins. If the host can get over these hurdles, the rest is usually
easier—the competitions themselves are covered overwhelmingly as entertain-
ment by the accredited media that have a financial stake in their success, and
few international news organizations stick around to see how the legacies
work out.83
The media coverage of the long run-up to the tournaments is high-stakes
business. It is the one thing a host country or city cannot control, and as the
concept of ‘soft disempowerment’ suggests, it can be damaging, even fatal, to
the host’s goal of shining on the international stage. When China won the bid
to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, for example, it did so after two previous
unsuccessful attempts, and only twenty-four years after returning to the sum-
mer games as a participant in 1984.84 For the Chinese, however, what was
supposed to be an occasion for national triumph became one of international
humiliation. In the months before the games began, human rights organiza-
tions focused on Tibet and other issues and branded the Beijing games as the
‘Genocide Olympics’ for China’s support of the Sudanese government in
Darfur—a theme widely reported in the international press. The torch relay
was beset by protests, some of them violent, from the moment the flame left
Athens. The protests provoked outraged reactions from the Chinese public.
What a host country can more easily control, of course, is news coverage at
the event, during the games, when it can limit access to places and informa-
tion.85 In its bid for the 2008 games, for example, the Chinese government had
agreed that all attendees at the games, including all journalists, would have
unfettered access throughout the country and could report on anything they
wanted.86 Once the games began, however, Chinese authorities denied inter-
national journalists access to several internet sites such as Amnesty
International, Radio Free Asia, and the BBC Chinese-language sites, or sites
about Tiananmen Square, Tibet, and Taiwan.87 Internet speeds were slowed
down and virtual private network (VPN) applications were interrupted.88
Reporters covering the Beijing Games had been assured they would have
unlimited internet access, but an IOC official at the games told them other-
wise: ‘the regulatory changes we negotiated, … and which required Chinese
legislative changes were to do with reporting on the games. This didn’t neces-
sarily extend to free access and reporting on everything that relates to China.’89
Then IOC President Jacques Rogge had promised repeatedly that foreign

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journalists would have full internet access, and indeed the IOC had awarded
the games to Beijing on the expectation that it would make China more open.
Only two weeks before the 2008 games began, Rogge had said, ‘for the first
time, foreign media will be able to report freely and publish their work freely
in China. There will be no censorship on the Internet.’90
At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, domestic news organizations com-
plained to the IOC of official censorship before and during the games.
International reporters in Sochi told of police harassment and intimidation.91
The environment for press freedom in Russia has deteriorated steadily since
2010, the year of its successful World Cup bid. Under Vladimir Putin, the
country has recriminalized libel, introduced new restrictions on online media,
banned ‘gay propaganda’, and cracked down on civil society groups through its
foreign agent law. In its 2017 Index, RSF ranks Russia at 148, which is 25
positions below Qatar.
It is tempting to argue that if Qatar intended to liberalize its media environ-
ment, it would have done so by now. But international pressure related to the
World Cup has thus far focused elsewhere—on Qatar’s kafala labor system—
and that is where the country’s leadership has directed its attention. Moreover,
Qatar has a reputation for acting with confounding independence, and often
to the annoyance of its GCC partners. For example, not long after the block-
ade crisis began in June 2017, Qatar surprised everyone—and probably espe-
cially its GCC adversaries—by proposing changes to its residency laws that
would give significant new rights to some expatriates who comprise almost
75 percent of the population.92 Not long after, the emir issued a new law to
protect the rights of domestic workers such as drivers, maids, and nannies.93
Importantly, announcements such as these come with virtually no follow-up
news reporting about a policy’s implementation and practical effects, and
Qatar has a history of announcing liberalization measures that come to noth-
ing.94 But the heart of the World Cup controversy has always been a demo-
graphic one, about the status and rights of migrants, and the blockade crisis
has given Qatar an opportunity to experiment with social change. The pro-
posed law and the enacted one are reminders that soft power, in addition to
having an international audience, also has a domestic one, including powerful
actors who have different ideologies and ambitions than the ruling branch of
the royal family. In that environment, a political crisis—or a World Cup—can
provide cover for social change.
Thus, while there is no way to know how Qatar’s media environment may
change in response to the media scrutiny surrounding the World Cup, if the

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Cup comes then scrutiny will come. The world will watch and comment, and
obviously so will Qataris, whose views about expressive freedom and official
censorship are varied but also demonstrably changing, particularly among the
young and college educated.95 An anecdote makes the point. In June 2017,
only a few days after the Saudi-led blockade began, a Northwestern alumnus
wrote a letter to the student paper at the home campus in Evanston, Illinois,
that was highly critical of Qatar and asked if it was time for the university ‘to
quit’ the country, or whether ‘Doha’s dollars outweigh Evanston’s ethics.’96 He
asked, rhetorically, how an American journalism school can be in a country
without a free press. Several students at the Qatar campus wrote to take issue
with the letter’s author. A common theme in all the responses, as one student
put it, was that ‘American’ journalism standards would not work in Qatar, but
rather Qataris will create their own, which in time will break more boundaries
and develop their own understanding of what it is to practice journalism and
communication in Qatar.
When asked, my Qatari students are apt to be realistic rather than idealistic
when they assess the future of media freedom in their country. Many believe
it prudent to keep the law’s licensing requirement for publications, even if
they think licenses should be easier to get and harder to lose. Many are willing
to retain criminal penalties for some speech offenses. Some of their ideas
about liberalizing speech restrictions—to protect all religions against dispar-
agement, for example, not just the monotheistic ones—can be puzzling to an
outsider, but also understandable. For my students, cultural traditions are
important, Qatari national identity is a work in progress, and regional politics
cannot be ignored. Qataris will liberalize their media environment on their
own terms.
But the pressure to change will be real. Qatar has immersed itself in an
extraordinary confluence of factors: the right to host one of the world’s biggest
sporting and media events, intense scrutiny of the human rights performance
of ISNGOs, and its own aspirations to be recognized as a modern and influ-
ential state.

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 7

TURKISH SPORTS

LOST IN POLITICS?

Cem Tınaz

Introduction

Despite being well established and continuously updated, sports policy has
been a crucial matter for the Turkish Republic since the 1930s; to this day, the
search for an appropriate long-term sports policy continues. The current gov-
ernment, run by the Justice and Development Party (AKP), has implemented
a variety of sports-related policies since it began its tenure in 2002. Most of
the AKP’s initiatives have been related to elite sport. Policies include bidding
for the Olympic Games; hosting over forty high-profile international sporting
events between 2010 and 2017; offering monetary awards for professional
athletic achievements; naturalization of foreign athletes; and the construction
of football stadiums and other sports facilities. Motives behind the policies
range from gaining international prestige for Turkey to promoting interna-
tionally successful elite athletes and increasing sports participation among
different age groups. However, the statistics regarding sports participation

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

reveal that attempts to stimulate grassroots development in order to increase

sports participation have been largely insufficient and inconsistent.
In 2017, the Turkish Ministry of Sport spent approximately $155 million
on the construction of new sport facilities, but their effectiveness and acces-
sibility to the community is questionable since they were constructed primar-
ily to accommodate elite athletes. The main sources of sports participation for
ordinary Turkish people are nonprofit sports clubs, most of which are suffer-
ing financially. The so-called ‘decentralized’ sport federations are actually
state-dependent, as most of their funding comes from the government.
Turkish football, which is often the first sport that comes to the Turkish com-
munity’s mind, has been able to solidify its firm standing in the larger
European football industry as the sixth-largest market in terms of total reve-
nue earned through recent business agreements. On the other hand, decreas-
ing numbers of spectators, the burden of financial debt on professional teams,
and a highly politicized management structure create a questionable future for
the sport. Despite this, football remains the most popular sport in Turkey,
meaning the central government continues to subsidize the sport.
Additionally, local municipalities have become important institutions when
it comes to offering various sports services to their communities.
Due to the growing social significance of sport and their potential to pro-
vide an outlet for implementation of the state’s welfare ideology, sport and
leisure became a legitimate area of public policy in developed countries in the
1960s and early to mid-1970s.1 There is vast evidence in the literature that
sport as a policy concern has gained greater salience as a government priority
worldwide.2 As a social product, sport is easily integrated into government
projects. Penelope Kissoudi points out that there are some states in which
sport is fully integrated into the political system; while in others, sport is
organized by non-political bodies.3 International sport, especially Olympic
sport, is deeply integrated into most domestic political systems. There are
often debates within governments regarding elite sport funding, building
facilities, applications for hosting events, and the achievements or failures of
elite athletes at the Olympic Games.
States promote sport to increase participation, and manage sport with the
goal of establishing a regulation mechanism for sporting bodies and/or pro-
ducing top athletes.4 Additionally, governments fund the organization of
world-class sporting events and cover the costs of sports facilities. The United
Kingdom, Australia, and Canada have increased the levels of resources for
sport, leading to improved performance by their elite athletes over the past
decade.5 Many countries are increasing funding for recruitment programs to

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scout talented youth and develop them into athletes. In addition to these
countries, another group of emerging countries is increasingly interested in
hosting international sport events. Examples include the 2008 Summer
Olympic Games and the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in China; the 2010
FIFA World Cup in South Africa; the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016
Summer Olympic Games in Brazil; and the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
As Danyel Reiche has indicated, emerging countries are aiming to gain inter-
national prestige, achieve national unity, and improve their countries’ infra-
structure through sports.6 Despite the long-standing cliché that ‘sports and
politics should not mix’,7 the reality today is that politics and sport coexist to
a considerable degree.
This chapter provides an overview of Turkey’s sports policy during the years
2002–2018. I focus on this period because the country has been under the
rule of the AKP party throughout, and the AKP’s political ideologies have
been consistent over the past two decades. The AKP has held power for longer
than any party before it, going back to the 1950s when Turkey became a full
democracy. The chapter will identify pathways for the state to achieve success
in elite sports and to increase sports participation; it discusses the state’s rea-
sons for hosting international sport events; and, finally, it examines problems
and deficiencies in national sport. In order to understand the current misman-
agement in Turkish sports, I also discuss the state’s motives for hosting inter-
national sport events. A substantial amount of money has been allocated to
these events, which could be used for different areas of sports development.
For this research, I conducted nineteen semi-structured, in-depth, face-to-
face interviews between 2012 and 2018 with former Turkish sports ministers
and other sports authorities, including the CEO of Istanbul’s 2020 Summer
Olympics bid, the President of the Turkish National Olympic Committee,
and the secretary general of the Turkish Tennis Federation. I transcribed inter-
views, analyzed data, and examined and summarized the results of this study.
I conducted all interviews in Turkish, and the transcribed summaries were
later translated into English. In addition, I reviewed academic literature, gov-
ernment files, news stories, and other reports for an evaluation of sports policy
created by the Turkish government.

Government Policies through the Years

Since the establishment of the Turkish Republic, the government has utilized
sports to display a positive image of Turkey as a developed country. The term

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

‘sports’ first appeared in the official government programs of Turkey in 1937.

In 1938, through law no. 3530, the ‘Law for Education of the Body’, sports
funding was given a legal basis and was implemented through government
programs, budgets, decrees, and plans. This could be considered the Turkish
government’s first attempt at official policy formulation. During the 1940s
and 1950s, the government focused primarily on three areas: opening
advanced physical education institutes, training instructors in all kinds of
sporting activities in schools and clubs, and initiating the establishment of
sports fields. In 1961, for the first time, a sports minister was appointed to the
cabinet, in which he served until 1965.8 Prior to this period, sport had been
considered a leisure activity, and the state was only responsible for maintain-
ing material-technical conditions. However, after this period, it was also
decided that efficient organizational attempts in the field of physical educa-
tion should be accelerated; hence, sports fields and facilities accessible to
youth in all provinces and districts of the country would be established.
In the early 1960s, the government began to prepare five-year development
plans. By definition, these plans were prepared by the State Planning
Organization; their purpose was both to guide the private sector and to order
the public sector to aim for the economic and social objectives that in turn
formed part of the development objectives set for all or specific regions of the
country.9 Sports became a feature of the second five-year plan in 1968. This
plan involved a comprehensive analysis of the relations between the state and
sports organizations as well as the conditions and problems of sports clubs
and facilities.10 In the third development plan, the government declared that
it intended to build sporting facilities and stands for any entity that desired
to participate in sports. Another intention was to provide funding for ama-
teur sports, including track and field, wrestling, and gymnastics.11 In the
fourth development plan, the focus was on improving sport for all ages and
building sports facilities to accommodate large numbers of spectators.12 In
1982, the newly promulgated Constitution was the first to include a specific
reference to sports; thus, sports were now protected under the Constitution.
Articles 58 and 59 of the Constitution declared that ‘the state shall take
measures to promote the physical and mental health of Turkish citizens of all
ages, encourage the spread of sports among the masses, and protect successful
athletes.’13 During the 1980s and 1990s, sports policy remained focused on
increasing participation, building sports facilities, achieving success in elite
sports, educating human resources for the sporting sector, and restructuring
sports environments where necessary. However, the unstable political envi-

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ronment in Turkey in the period 1980–2000 left most of these sport-related

goals unachieved.
In 2002, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the general elec-
tion. After coming to power, the government made sports one of its invest-
ment priorities. Prior to that, the Turkish Republic faced considerable
economic instability, which saw the Gross National Product fall to $148 bil-
lion in 2001 from $201.4 billion in 2000.14 Despite considering sports an
important part of the economy, the government found it difficult to invest in
Turkish sports due to economic hardship. In the 1990s, Turkey became a
candidate to host the Summer Olympic Games for the first time, and the AKP
has continued to work on this desire to host the event. Though Turkey has not
won its bids to host the Games, it has still hosted many top-tier sporting
events in the country since 2000. Additionally, Turkey has offered various
financial awards for its elite athletes and has built many sports facilities, dem-
onstrating significant policy change.

Sports Structure and Commendable Actions in Turkish Sports

In recent decades, Turkey has made progress, albeit slow, in terms of sports
development. Despite this progress, interviewees were aware that Turkey still
lacked a well-established sporting culture in Turkey. Many projects have been
created with the goal of fostering a richer, more vibrant sporting culture in
Turkish communities, especially for the younger generation. In order to
understand how the management system works in Turkish sports, it is useful
to first examine the sporting structure.
Within the Turkish sporting framework, the following all play active roles:
the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Ministry of National Education, the
General Directorate of Sports, the Directorate of Spor Toto, local administra-
tions, the Turkish National Olympic Committee, the Turkish National
Paralympic Committee, independent sports federations, sports clubs, and
universities. These organizations are responsible for managing and executing
sports services and activities. As Çolakoğlu and Erturan have concluded about
Turkish sporting history,15 there seems to have been constant change in terms
of structure and authority over the years. Despite this constant change over
the years, the government has maintained its role as the centralized directing
organism of Turkish sports. From the introduction of a formal sports policy,
to the recognition of sports as a national priority, to the encouragement of
professionalism in sports, a total of eight structural changes in the sports gov-

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

erning organizations are evidence of the centralized power of the government

in this regard.16
Figure 1 presents an organizational map for a better understanding of the
current structure. The main aim of the mapping process is to recognize and
identify all organizations within the sporting sector and their relationships
with each other. The solid lines between the stakeholders represent direct
relationships, while the dotted lines represent indirect relationships. As the
map shows, there is a variety of organizations within the sporting sector in
Turkey. The provision of sports services is the responsibility of some of these
different organizations. In addition to the organizations listed on the map,
there are sports marketing and management agencies that are for-profit and
that provide supportive marketing, management, and communication ser-
vices for individuals, clubs, and/or federations. As seen on the map, the
sporting environment in Turkey is highly saturated. Governmental organiza-
tions like the Ministry of Sports and the General Directorate of Sports have
a central role; the state regulates the system, identifies sports-related policies,
provides funding for sports federations, builds most of the sporting facilities,
and funds the international sport events hosted in Turkey. Thus, the sport

Figure 1: Mapping the Turkish Sporting Structure

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 TURKISH SPORTS

sector in Turkey is mostly state dependent. Since this map identifies the
important relationships between organizations in the Turkish sporting sec-
tor, it will also be helpful to understand the ideology behind the country’s
sports policies and decisions.

Priorities in Turkish Sports Policy (2002–2013)

The AKP’s first sports-related political action was to pass a law in 2004 for the
decentralization (authorization) of sports federations, with the aim of decreas-
ing political intervention in federations, instead giving full authorization to
the federations to manage sports in the country. According to this law, general
assemblies elect the autonomous federations of their bodies; they also approve
budgets for the autonomous federations, and they hand responsibility to these
federations for a range of decision-making within their own bodies.17
Interestingly, all transactions and activities of autonomous federations are
subject to the supervision of the Ministry, to which the General Directorate
is affiliated. This law could have allowed federations to participate more in
decision-making and to secure their own financial resources.18 However, over
the last few years, only a handful of federations have been able to generate
their own income. The failure of the other federations could be a result of
limited sports participation, limited media and sponsorship interest, and low
numbers of spectators. These federations have remained dependent on govern-
ment subsidies and therefore have been unable to become fully autonomous
in terms of management.
Former Sports Minister Mehmet Ali Şahin explained the government’s
second subsequent step as follows: ‘as an extension to the policy for sport
funding, the law on sponsorship was adopted in 2004. As a result of this law,
Turkey was able to increase sponsorship investments and that has provided
additional funding to sports.’19 According to this new law, companies that
sponsor Turkish sports can deduct their expenses from their tax payments.
With the introduction of this law, the future scope of youth and sports activi-
ties increased due to increased investment from sponsors, which happened
after the re-regulation of taxes for the sponsoring companies.
The third important step, taken when Mehmet Ali Şahin was minister
(2002–2007), was the establishment of Iddaa, a sports betting company regu-
lated by the government as part of the National Lottery Administrations
(Spor Toto), which is a public institution affiliated with the Ministry of Youth
and Sports, but also a separate legal entity, as stated in Article 1 of Law

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

no. 7258.20 Iddaa acts as a monopoly since private sports betting companies
are not allowed to operate in Turkey. Since its introduction, wide acceptance
and high interest from the public has made Iddaa one of the most important
financial resources for Turkish professional sport. Between 2004 and 2009
Iddaa generated more than $4 billion in revenue and delivered over $350
million to football clubs.21 After its attempts to place sports funding on a sure
financial basis, the government focused on developing its own bureaucratic
system for sports management. In 2011, at the end of former Sport Minister
Faruk Özak’s term (2009–2011), the ministerial approach changed from
being state-minded to sport-minded. Özak has stated that ‘operations are now
less bureaucratic, and this change was highly necessary. Additionally, sports
clubs are subject to the “law of associations.” We should also change this struc-
ture. If that is achieved, clubs will be able to find new revenue sources and/or
manage themselves more efficiently.’22
During Özak’s ministry, a law for the prevention of violence and match-
fixing in sports (Law no. 6222) was also adopted.23 The purpose of this law is
to prevent irregularities at sporting venues and in their surroundings before,
during, and after competition; wherever fans are permanently or temporarily
resident or present; and on their departure and arrival routes to games.24
Under the law, various types of security and protective measures have been
issued. Measures include effective arrangements for the removal of individuals
involved in violent behavior from sporting venues and introduction of a new
electronic ticketing system. Along with issuing tickets, the aim of the e-ticket
system is the detection, removal, and control of individuals engaging in vio-
lent behavior. Another aim is prevention of ticket sales on the black market,
which arguably has still not been achieved. This law has a particular focus on
football since over 90 percent of violent behavior in sport occurs in football
stadiums.25 Despite creating a new control system, this law has faced severe
backlash. Because football games were widely used as forums in which to
protest against the government, this law has resulted in a decline in the num-
ber of spectators at football games, since many fans have refused to be
recorded, controlled, and potentially blacklisted by the government.
In Turkey until the late 1990s, the main sources of elite sport development
were through sports clubs. However, compared to other European countries,
such as France, Germany, and Spain, Turkey’s total number of sport clubs was
extremely low.26 For example, Turkey had 14,009 sports clubs, while France
had 164,137, Spain had 94,511, and Germany had 91,000. In order to
improve the number of clubs and their level of competitiveness, after the AKP

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party took power, elite sports development became the state’s financial
responsibility; yet, many sports clubs still faced financial difficulties.27 Since
2004, non-profit sport clubs in Turkey have been managed according to the
‘law of associations’ (Law no. 5253),28 which was passed to cover regulations
for all nonprofit associations in general, with nonprofit sports clubs included.
The law has obvious disadvantages, however. For one, it is highly bureaucratic:
managers or presidents are not nearly as independent in their financial and
managerial decisions as they would be in private companies. Arguably, amend-
ing this law could have seen clubs become more efficient in finding new rev-
enue sources and/or management strategies.
In 2013, the Turkish government released the ‘National Youth and Sport
Policy Paper’, which examined the government’s current sport and youth-
related policies and strategies. According to the paper, the main aims of sports
policies were:
• To encourage people of all ages to participate in sporting activities, ensuring
that healthy generations are raised;
• To enable sports facilities for amateur sports;
• To introduce a new education system with support of the Ministry of
Education to ensure that physical education and sports lessons are part of
the curriculum;
• To identify and educate young talented children and train and support
them to become successful elite athletes on the international scene;
• To establish analysis centers as part of the fight against doping, and to
inform athletes about the harmful effects of drug usage;
• To take necessary precautions to prevent violence and unethical behavior
in sports;
• To develop projects for the participation of disabled citizens in sport, to
make sports facilities suitable for the use of disabled people, and to support
disabled sportspeople and their families;
• To organize Olympic Games, Paralympic Games, and other prestigious
international sporting events in Turkey.29
According to this paper, the government believed that early talent identifica-
tion was crucial for achieving success in elite sports, and claimed that it was
very important for children and young people with high levels of sporting tal-
ent to be identified. For this reason, it was necessary to carry out comprehen-
sive and consistent scientific studies on young people old enough to take up a
sport in order to identify, and to educate, those who were determined to reach

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

the highest levels of performance. Although children begin sports at different

ages, depending on the sport, the government insisted that exposing children
to sports earlier on would be essential if they were to acquire basic sporting
skills at a young age, as well as to prepare them for a career at the elite level. For
the development of elite sports, the following strategies were considered:
1. Increasing the quality of experts and qualified technical staff;
2. Offering awards for achievements and the development of incentive
programs;
3. Fostering and developing elite athletes;
4. Performing a general sport talent scout across the country and preparing a
map of sporting potential.
The government aimed to provide professionals such as coaches, nutrition-
ists, conditioners, masseurs, sports physicians, and sports psychologists, so that
elite athletes could achieve success in international competitions through
working with experts. In addition, providing financial aid, equipment, and
facilities for athletes during training was also considered important.
In Turkey, rewards for high-performance athletes participating in both
national and international sporting tournaments were first introduced in 1986
with the Law on the Organization and Duties of the General Directorate of
Sports (Law no. 3289). Despite there being no stipulation regarding the
amount or type of rewards, authorities emphasized the necessity of giving
both nonfinancial and financial aid. Based on this law, in the year 2000, the
government issued regulations for the value of rewards and announced them
to the public.30 In accordance with this regulation, medalists in the Olympic
Games, World Championships, and European Championships received gold
coins as prizes. An Olympic gold medalist could receive a reward of 750 gold
coins, equivalent to a six-figure cash prize in Euros. However, after scrutinizing
the prize proceedings in 2013, I found that athletes who received cash prizes
due to their successes in the championships were not as successful in subse-
quent competitions, suggesting that athletes lost motivation to maintain their
high performance in subsequent competitions.
To support this argument, I analyzed Turkey’s performance in the Olympic
Games between 2002 and 2012; only two Turkish athletes won more than
one medal at the Olympic Games in that period. Besides this, doping inci-
dents made officials reexamine the effect of such rewards and prizes. The law
also declared that prizes awarded to athletes would be taken back by the
authorities if athletes were later found to have used drugs. Nevertheless, fur-

132


Table 1: Number of gold coins awarded to medalists

Gold* Silver Bronze

TURKISH SPORTS
Before 2013 After 2013 Before 2013 After 2013 Before 2013 After 2013

Olympic 2000 1000 1500 600 1000 300

(470,000 €) (235,000 €) (352,500 €) (141,000 €) (235,000 €) (70,500 €)
World 1000 500 750 300 500 150
Championships (235,000 €) (117,500 €) (176,250 €) (70,500 €) (117,500 €) (35,250 €)
European 500 300 350 150 200 75
Championships (117,500 €) (70,500 €) (35,250 €) (35,250 €) (47,000 €) (17,625 €)

* One gold coin equals €235 as of 2 December 2016.

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ther increases in the numbers of doping incidents in Turkish elite sports

forced the authorities to redesign the reward system in 2013 (under the same
law), resulting in the Ministry of Youth and Sports announcing two major
changes. Firstly, the coins were given to the medalist in installments over time,
rather than as a lump sum. In addition, the coins were doubled for athletes
winning the medal for a second time.31 Secondly, the amount of the reward
was halved, such that the prize for a gold medal changed from 2,000 gold
coins to 1,000 gold coins for the Olympic Games. The changes in the amount
of gold coins are depicted in Table 1.
The rewards offered by the government were not sufficient in Turkey, con-
sidering the effort and time put into training by the athletes. In an interview,
athletics manager Önder Özbilen explicitly noted that elite athletes, despite
representing Turkey at the Olympic level, were having financial difficulties due
to the government’s negligence.32 Additionally, the system did not provide any
meaningful incentive for trainers and clubs. For many athletes, it was almost
impossible to continue their professional sporting career without getting
financial support from their clubs, especially in sports like athletics, judo,
fencing, and rowing. However, in some sports, like football, basketball, and
volleyball where Turkish teams are internationally recognized, there is hope
for a financially stable future.
The strategic plan of the Ministry of Youth and Sports states that one of its
goals is to improve the reward system as an incentive for high performance in
sports by 2019.33 The reward system is seen as a major tool with which the
Turkish government can motivate high-performance athletes to succeed. Job
opportunities have also been created within governmental departments for
those athletes who have important achievements to their name or demonstrated
promise.34 Not only is recruitment a clever step to ensure athletes’ futures, it can
also motivate young competitors. Following a possible elite or professional
sporting career, the prospect of finding a well-respected position within the
government may further entice young people to achieve success in sport.
All interviewees for this research were aware of the importance of differ-
ent levels of sport participation. When it comes to increasing sports partici-
pation, school sports are crucial. Although many ministers were aware of the
importance of school sports as a recruitment source for elite sports, integra-
tion of the two has still not taken place. As the authorities have indicated, a
strong relationship between the sporting and educational systems has yet to
be established. The president of the Turkish National Olympic Committee,
Uğur Erdener, mentions another important aspect of the problem in the
following terms:

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We should have proper criteria for evaluating the success of not only athletes but
also our sports institutions. If we are only medals-oriented, then we will proba-
bly miss some important values. For example, in some branches of sport, athletes
might not win any medals at the Olympic Games, but that does not necessarily
mean that this sport’s governing federation is unsuccessful. They might have
planned for the next games, made investments in the next generation, or focused
on facility development … instead of winning medals. We should consider these
different areas of success carefully, not only focus on the medals won.35
As mentioned, school sports policy is one of the most problematic areas of
sports development in Turkey. Basic physical education courses for pre-pri-
mary education are needed, studies on education through play at the primary
school level should be conducted, and education specific to different sports
should be provided. When it comes to physical education lessons, debates are
ongoing regarding the duration of lessons at the primary, intermediate, and
high school levels. During the late 1990s, the duration of lessons was increased
to two hours per week. It then decreased to one hour per week and, during the
late 2000s, increased again to two hours. In addition, the number of lessons
per week and their content has been a contentious issue. Repeated curriculum
changes are not a surprise. During the ministries of Şahin (2002–2007) and
Başesgioğlu (2007–2009), free-of-charge sports schools were opened for
youngsters wanting to take up sports. Özak adopted a project called
‘Construct, Donate and Cut Your Tax Expenses’ in order to build more sport-
ing facilities in schools. Perhaps the most important and effective projects,
however, were those run by the Turkish Olympic Committee, whose president
Uğur Erdener stated:
We are running a project in primary schools called ‘Oli.’ So far, our instructors
have educated 650,000 students. We are planning to teach 1.5 million within
the next year. Our goal is to teach students the importance of Olympic sporting
culture during early childhood. We are making the effort to reach a broader
community in Turkey, in case Istanbul is chosen as the host city for the Games.36
At that stage, the support of the Olympic sponsors had greater salience.
According to Erdener, some of the Olympic sponsors showed an interest in
supporting such social projects. A supportive system in which young, talented
athletes can simultaneously achieve educational success and sporting success
is yet to be developed. The Turkish education system evaluates students
through a centralized examination system, which focuses on their academic
ability. Before even turning eighteen, the students have to go through a num-
ber of these competitive exams. With continuous pressure from their parents
to study hard, potential athletes face a dilemma: whether to continue com-

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petitive sports and neglect their studies or to pursue higher education and
quit competitive sports.

Updates on Turkish Sports and Politics Post-2014

In 2013, after losing its fifth bid to host the Olympic Games, things took a turn
for Turkey. The government faced a setback in its ongoing ambition to host the
Olympic Games. In addition to a lack of victories for Turkish sports teams, this
led to a change of attitude on the part of the government. Government spending
on sports was cut as the budget was reallocated and spending priorities recon-
sidered. The aim of this section is not to highlight the difficulties faced by
Turkish sports after 2014, but to acknowledge mismanagement and misjudg-
ments; to draw attention to political involvement in Turkish sport; and to focus
on an objective, success in elite sports, common to both sports teams and sports
administrators. The hunt for a long-term policy continues.
The number of Olympic medals won is widely considered by many sports
policies to be the most important criterion of success. The government and
wider society, however, fail to realize that sports teams are part of a much
larger administrative structure, which is essential to ensure a sustainable sup-
port system for sport as a whole and teams within it. In other words, sports
participation rates, fan experience, and sports clubs’ financial health all matter
just as much as team championships and athlete successes. As the history of
Turkish sport confirms, the simple desire to win competitions does not trans-
late into effective, sustainable, and long-term success. Yet the government’s
focus remains on winning games and trophies.
The timing of federation elections also seems to be related to this focus. All
sports federations in Turkey, with the exception of the Turkish Football
Federation, conduct their elections once every four years. Scheduling the elec-
tions in such a manner permits evaluation of the federation presidents and
boards based on the successes achieved in their respective sports at the
Olympic Games. At the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, Turkish athletes won
eight medals (one gold, three silver, and four bronze) in four sports; in terms
of number of medals won, these Games were more successful for Turkey than
the 2008 Beijing Games and the 2012 London Games. However, the
Wrestling Federation won five of these medals, with the Taekwondo
Federation winning one, and two others were won for Turkey by naturalized
athletes. The 2016 Games, therefore, saw only two Turkish sports federations
(taekwondo and wrestling) achieve success if the criterion used is winning

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medals.37 Meanwhile, when it comes to the Winter Olympics, there have so

far been no achievements of note.
After the Rio de Janeiro Games, between September 2016 and January
2017, fifty-six federations held their elections. Thirty-five former presidents
were reelected as presidents of their federations, with twenty-one federations
electing new presidents. Of the federations with athletes competing at the
2016 Games, seventeen presidents retained their positions while twelve were
replaced. Interestingly, thirty-three of these fifty-six federations had only one
presidential candidate. Subsequently, a lack of alternative candidates led to
these presidents being reelected. The continuation in office of unsuccessful
presidents and its possible effects on sporting success needs further research.
One possible reason for this situation is government intervention: federation
board members and presidents who have good relations with the government
may be able to keep their status despite their management failures and lack of
on-field successes. Another interesting detail to mention is that in 2016, for
the first time in Turkey’s history, three female presidents were elected.38
Despite these changes, the representation of females managing sport is still
very low; of the 724 board members representing fifty-two sports federations,
only twenty-four are female.
A changing economic climate and political tensions in the Middle East also
forced the government to reconsider its expenses. The government’s new fund-
ing model reveals the bias towards elite sport in Turkey. Due to lack of finan-
cial resources, the government has mainly funded the Olympic sports
federations. Up until 2017, the AKP government has offered generous sup-
port for many sports federations, though Spor Toto continues to be the big-
gest funder of sports in Turkey. The following table shows the amount of
funding allocated to sports by Spor Toto.39

Table 2: Funds allocated by Spor Toto to sports federations between 2004 and 2017

Construction of facilities 2,148,925,997.35 TL

Sponsorships in respective sports 390,108,261.71 TL
League or event naming rights
Football 2,453,532,918.58 TL
Basketball 573,223,819.41 TL
Volleyball 219,180,507.74 TL
Handball 73,815,596.96 TL
Individual athletes 23,446,059.89 TL

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The government sports funding system, as mentioned earlier, has been

reformed once again. According to the secretary general of the Turkish Tennis
Federation, the government currently makes funds available according to the
success potential of athletes at the Olympic Games.40 Under the current sys-
tem, there are three different budgets available for sports federations: the
Directorate of Sports budget, the Spor Toto budget, and the Special Projects
budget. The Directorate of Sports budget is only available for federations
managing Olympic-material athletes; the Spor Toto budget is available for the
general expenses of sports operations; and the Special Projects budget is avail-
able to federations involved in sports development projects, such as ‘sport-for-
all,’ or school sports competitions, and only if approved by the Committee of
the Ministry of Sports, which is responsible for budget allocation.
In recent times, there has been one important additional budgetary consid-
eration for the Ministry of Sports as well as the federations: the inclusion of
refugees residing in Turkey in sporting activities. As of March 2017, there
were 2,957,454 registered Syrians in Turkey,41 and the Ministry of Sports has
been organizing a variety of social, arts, and sports-related projects to engage
them. Additionally, numerous sport clubs apply for grants offered by the
European Union in order to organize and fund different kinds of sports-
related activities for refugees.
Recently, municipalities have become important institutions in Turkey for
the provision of sports-related projects and services,42 and the Law of
Municipalities (No. 5393) bestows the following sports-related responsibili-
ties upon these municipalities:
• Municipalities give, when necessary, sports equipment to young people in
order to encourage sports; provide sports equipment and cash aid to ama-
teur sports clubs; provide necessary support; organize all kinds of amateur
sporting events for athletes as well as technical staff who have demonstrated
success in national and international competitions; and coaches may receive
prizes with approval of the city council.
• Mutual cooperation with municipalities elsewhere in Turkey or munici-
palities in foreign countries (subject to permission from the Ministry of
Interior) can be established to carry out activities and projects in fields such
as culture, art, and sports in order to improve economic and social bilateral
relations.43
Although many municipalities around Turkey provide the services and
projects mentioned above, controversially, many are using their resources for
professional sports instead of creating recreational sport opportunities.

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Importance of Hosting International Sporting Events

Hosting international sporting events has become an important topic in

Turkey. In this regard, considerable budgets have been set by the state for
sports organizations to cover the expenses of hosting these prestigious events.
Examples of sporting events organized in Turkey over the last decade include
the Istanbul Grand Prix Formula 1 (2005–2011), Universiade Summer
Games 2005 and Winter Games 2011, UEFA Champions League Final 2005,
and the UEFA Cup Final 2009. Between 2010 and 2013, Turkey hosted more
international sport events than it ever had before in one three-year span. As
the government continued to demonstrate its commitment and capacity to
host during the Olympic bidding process, the country set a new personal
record for itself. Even though the bid was lost, Turkey continued to host inter-
national sporting events. Some of the important sporting events that Turkey
hosted between 2010 and 2017 are listed below.

Table 3: International Sport Events Organized in Turkey 2010–2017

Year Event Location

1 2010 International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir,

World Championship Kayseri
2 2010 Karate World Clubs Cup Istanbul
3 2010 Formula 1 (F1) Turkish Grand Prix Istanbul
4 2010 2010 World Weightlifting Championships Antalya
5 2011 TEB BNP Paribas Women’s Tennis Istanbul
Association (WTA) Championships
6 2011 European Amateur Boxing Championships Ankara
7 2011 Fédération Internationale de Volleyball Ankara
(FIVB) Volleyball Girls’ U18 World
Championship
8 2011 European Youth Summer Olympic Festival Trabzon
9 2011 World Wrestling Championships Istanbul
10 2011 Winter Universiade Erzurum
11 2011 European Judo Championships Istanbul
12 2011 F1 Turkish Grand Prix Istanbul
13 2011 Karate World Clubs Cup Istanbul
14 2012 TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships Istanbul
15 2012 European Weightlifting Championships Antalya
16 2012 European Sports Capital Istanbul

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

17 2012 International Association of Athletics Istanbul

Federations (IAAF) World Indoor
Championships
18 2012 FIBA Euroleague Women Final Eight Istanbul
19 2012 Euroleague Final Four Istanbul
20 2012 Fédération Internationale de Natation Istanbul
(FINA) World Swimming Championships
(25 m)
21 2013 Fédération Internationale de Football Istanbul, Trabzon, Rize,
Association (FIFA) U-20 World Cup Bursa, Kayseri, Antalya,
Gaziantep
22 2013 Mediterranean Games Mersin
23 2013 Confédération Européenne de Volleyball Istanbul
(CEV) Women’s Champions League Final
Four
24 2013 TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships Istanbul
25 2013 FIVB Volleyball Men’s U21 World Ankara, Izmir
Championship
26 2013 World Archery Championships Antalya
27 2013 FIBA EuroChallenge Final Four Izmir
28 2014 FIBA World Championship for Women Istanbul, Ankara
29 2014 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship Konya
30 2014 Turkish Airlines Ladies Open (Golf ) Antalya
31 2014 World Rhythmic Gymnastics Izmir
Championships
32 2015 FIVB Volleyball Women’s U23 World Ankara
Championship
33 2015 FIBA EuroChallenge Final Four Trabzon
34 2016 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship Samsun
35 2016 FIBA Euroleague Women Final Four Istanbul
36 2017 FIBA EuroBasket Istanbul
37 2017 Euroleague Final Four Istanbul
38 2017 Summer Deaflympics Samsun
39 2017 European Youth Olympic Winter Festival Erzurum
40 1963– Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey Multiple locations in
Present (2UWC Class) Turkey
41 1979– Istanbul Marathon (Gold Label) Istanbul
Present

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The following sentiment has always been the primary motive of the previ-
ous Olympic bids: ‘If we can host the Olympic Games, this changes the inter-
national reputation of Turkey and the attitudes of the Turkish population
regarding sport.’44 Interviewees for this research also shared their opinions that
prominent sporting events hosted in Turkey have positive local as well as inter-
national effects. The aim of hosting prominent sport events, they contend, is
to contribute to the brand value of Turkey through successfully organized
sporting events, consistent with the views of Whitson and Horne, Waitt, and
Essex and Chalkey.45
Sporting authorities interviewed also outlined the following key objectives
in hosting these events:
• increasing Turkish youth sporting participation;
• improving Turkish elite athletes’ performance;
• improving the sporting image of Turkey;
• gains in internal and external prestige.46
At the national level, hosting the Olympic Games is a good opportunity to
stimulate trade activity and to boost the host nation’s economy in various
ways. South Korea used the opportunity of hosting the 1988 Olympic Games
to draw attention to its rapidly expanding industrial economy;47 as a result,
the country saw an increase in tourism and foreign investments. Media cover-
age plays a key role here, as a positive portrayal attracts audiences from the
international community. Another important dimension is that host cities
have the opportunity to rebuild their infrastructure, improve their transporta-
tion networks, and upgrade their visitors’ accommodation, if needed.
Arguably, however, there are also disadvantages and large expenses associated
with hosting big events like the Olympic Games. As Latouche and Searle have
suggested, mega-sporting events can be especially burdensome for host cities.48
Zimbalist links mega-sporting events to ‘white elephants’, a prestigious but
costly gift in early Eastern cultures—similar to hosting mega-sport events,
‘white elephants’ came with certain financial obligations.49
One of the most important benefits of hosting international sport events in
Turkey accrues to the tourism sector. With more than thirty million annual
foreign visitors, tourism has a major impact on Turkey’s economy. Hosting
international sporting events creates a global community by bringing together
fans and lovers of sports from different parts of the world. Media coverage of
international sporting events being held in Turkey broadcasts the country’s
contribution to the world of sports, creating a positive image and global repu-

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

tation for the country. This media-tourism model is common to other mega-
events, as highlighted in the literature.50 Turkey’s youth population (15–24
years old) is around thirteen million, and that means a large active work
force.51 As Özak has stated,52 the Olympic Games would create new job
opportunities. Arguably, the Olympic Games have been a missing part of the
world-famous, mega-city image of Istanbul.

Problems and Deficiencies of Sport in Turkey

Despite efforts and investments made on the part of the government, sports
development in Turkey has been slow. Low numbers of participants; insignifi-
cant increases in young active-sport participants and numbers of sport clubs;
and inconsistent levels of achievement in elite sports support this observation.
The number of active athletes is low in comparison to the total population.
The actual numbers support this thesis; in contrast to the total population of
seventy-five million, there are 3,841,600 licensed athletes in total.53 However,
this number does not reflect the reality of active sports participation.
Although there are 222,795 licensed basketball players, according to the
Turkish Basketball Federation, the number of actively participating basketball
players in all competitions is only 50,444.54 Similarly, there are 30,663 licensed
tennis players, but the Turkish Tennis Federation states that the number of
these athletes who participate in competitions is actually only 4,863.55 Despite
the many efforts to bring education and sport together and to use sport as a
tool for education, the two have never been fully integrated. The Turkish
education system has faced many radical changes over the last twenty-five
years, and most of these changes have arisen due to the political priorities of
various ruling parties.56
In addition to these deficiencies, former Sports Minister Özak has observed
that ‘there is a lack of accessibility to sport at schools. Although we do offer
sports classes, most of them remain ineffective when it comes to gaining new
participants in sports.’57 In big cities like Istanbul, Ankara, and Adana most
schools suffer from insufficient sports facilities, while rural areas, despite the
availability of land, have insufficient financial resources to create sports facili-
ties. This has created an inconvenient and discouraging environment for active
participation in sports at the school level.
In many developed countries, participation in elite sports is greatly
dependent on active school sport programs.58 In Turkey, however, due to the
lack of development and support for sport in the education system, there is

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a deficiency in talent identification and grooming. Turkish sports develop-

ment depends mainly on sports clubs; with restricted resources, most sports
clubs and their managers are only able to educate, train, and develop athletes
at later stages of development from a pool that is self-assembling at the ear-
lier stages. Only minimal developmental opportunities are available at the
grassroots level. There is a dire need to invest in scouting and approaching
potential athletes, instead of waiting for athletes to identify themselves.
There is no centralized talent identification system that can integrate pro-
spective athletes from a larger pool of younger participants into the com-
petitive elite sport system. Professionalization of sport in Turkey still needs
to be developed. In this light, Uğur Erdener describes the profile of Turkish
sports administrators thus:
In the past, we had sports administrators who were able to speak a couple of
foreign languages and had relevant experience in the sports field. If we compare
these people with the current administrators, it is obvious that the current
Turkish sports model is aiming to protect the status quo, instead of supporting
better, more experienced, and more effective people who can contribute more
to the international reputation of Turkey.59
Here arise questions about the quality of education in sports administra-
tion departments across Turkey, and possibly about the employee selection
criteria of sports administrators. In order to make sports administrators
responsible for athlete development and club duties, their professional and
social skills need diversification. They need to understand the dynamics of the
various departments in the sports management world in order to create a
sustainable productive system that utilizes the potential of its athletes, whilst
improving the economic situation of the clubs.
Without question, football is the most popular sport in Turkey, as it is in
many European countries. Indeed, two other former Sports Ministers,
Başesgioğlu and Şahin, state that many people consider football to be the only
important sport in Turkey, one that therefore deserves full attention and sup-
port.60 Football has long been a fan favorite in Turkey, attracting many follow-
ers and is often used as a tool by politicians to gain the votes of loyal club fans.
Since the establishment of the Turkish Republic, the ruling authorities,
including the army when it came to power, have used football as a political
tactic to build public support. Additionally, football clubs also use politics to
gain extra benefits like more funding and better infrastructure. This relation-
ship between football and politics has existed throughout Turkish history.
Because of the political, social, and economic advantages of supporting foot-

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

ball, the AKP government is putting tremendous effort and money into the
construction of new football stadiums, hoping to increase the number of
spectators. In a country that has seen football spectatorship suffer, the motives
for these investments require further academic investigation.
The government is currently funding construction of thirty football stadi-
ums around the country, the total budget for which is around $1 billion.61
However, many of these stadiums are located far away from city centers, which
could be part of the government’s attempt to modify rural areas by expanding
city limits. When it comes to these urbanization attempts, the Turkish govern-
ment has lessons to learn from its previous experiences. At the beginning of
the 2000s, the government used a similar strategy and selected an underdevel-
oped rural area for Istanbul’s Formula 1 track. After thirteen years of construc-
tion, the area had turned into a functional suburb with accessible
transportation, schools, universities, houses, and shopping malls. However,
the Formula 1 track is suffering since it has not hosted any prominent race
since 2011. Instead, the track has recently provided services as a test-drive
venue for global car companies, a parking lot for a rent-a-car company, and a
driving school. As an iconic international event, the development of the
Formula 1 track created a positive global image for Turkish sports during the
years that it was actively used, and also helped to urbanize the area and to add
to the economy of the country. However, after the end of its prime racing days,
the track failed to live up to its primary purpose, resulting in the government
improvising secondary uses for the track. The government achieved economic
success but lost the focus on sport.

Conclusions

Since the establishment of the Turkish Republic, the government has been at
the helm of a centralized control system for Turkish sports. In the past, the
government adopted an interventionist approach towards sports policy.
Through the establishment of new governing organizations, the government
formalized sports policy; provided various kinds of sports activities; educated
individuals for the sports industry; promoted sports to Turkish citizens; and
built sports facilities in different parts of the country. However, economic
instability prevented the government from achieving their sports policy-
related goals. This economic instability was addressed when the AKP party
came to power in 2002, and is one of the reasons that it has been winning
elections ever since. Regaining economic stability enabled the AKP party to

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invest more in sport than previous governments. Despite this investment,

however, most of the sports-related goals remain unachieved.
As a country that lacked a sporting culture, Turkey required intensive atten-
tion to its sports system, which required a long-term sustainable strategy such
as subsidizing the sports sector and providing it with proficient management.
Consisting of over fifty so-called ‘decentralized’ sports federations, the Turkish
sports sector suffered losses in its attempt to generate its own financial
resources. Ineffective management, insufficient participation rates, and poor
oversight have all contributed to this failure. Taking stock of the situation, the
government made subsequent attempts to increase sports participation, build
new facilities, and host international sports. These moves were, however, more
of a political tactic than a constructive sports policy. Creating a results-ori-
ented mentality amongst athletes, efforts to increase sports participation saw
a rewards policy emerge, one focusing on elite athletes while overlooking
unsuccessful ones. The government’s inability to integrate sports into the
education system created a dilemma for potential athletes, despite their desire
for active sport participation.
A top-down bureaucratic system emerged that was ineffective in its man-
agement of Turkish sports. Once comparable with the sporting elites of
Europe, Turkey soon found itself on the margins of the elite international
sporting community. Although economic growth has been considerable, and
the government has improved infrastructure and facilities, there still needs to
be a long-term sports policy. Using a holistic approach, sports should be a goal
in themselves, not a tool for political and economic gains. As Masterman has
stated, ‘the short-term impacts of these policies require considerable thought
and planning if they are to be developed into long-term and positive lega-
cies.’62 With a wide network of stakeholders responsible for the sporting sys-
tem, it is essential to optimize and appoint efficient staff for specific roles. To
engage Turkey’s large youth population of thirteen million, and to support
their participation in sport, it is essential that the government deliver sports
to the young generation, developing a growing sport culture with strategies
that follow up on initial initiatives.63

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 8

DEVELOPING A NATIONAL ELITE SPORT POLICY

IN AN ARAB COUNTRY

THE CASE OF LEBANON

Nadim Nassif

Introduction

Winning in international sport competitions goes beyond the collection of

trophies. It is a matter of national pride, a contest to show the superiority of
one country over others. In what became a famous quote, George Orwell
defined international sports as ‘a war minus the shooting.’1 According to Pierre
Colomb, winning in sports is essential to reflect the strength of a nation,2 and
because it costs much less than military war, all countries can use it, regardless
of their size, influence, or power. Although a debatable practice,3 scholars
usually refer to the Olympic medal table when measuring the performance of
a country in international competitions.4 The competition among nations for
the maximum number of medals, what Reiche has labeled the ‘Gold War’,5
started at the beginning of the twentieth century. Because of this, the various
governments of different countries across the globe started to develop national

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

elite sport policies specifically aimed at achieving success at major interna-

tional competitions, particularly the Olympics.6
Lebanon can be considered an underachiever in this quest. Since 1948, the
year the country first participated in the Olympics, Lebanon has only won
four medals. One could perhaps blame this shortcoming on the country’s civil
war that shook Lebanon to its core from 1975 to 1990. But since the 1992
Games, which took place two years after the end of the conflict, only eleven
athletes have been able to qualify.7 Six of them were either naturalized or were
Lebanese athletes from the diaspora; none won a medal.8 In the same period,
Estonia, Georgia, and Jamaica, with smaller populations and lower Gross
Domestic Products (GDP), were able to win twenty,9 thirty-two,10 and fifty-
eight medals,11 respectively.
This paper will not explore whether achieving results in international tour-
naments is beneficial for a country’s sustainable development and social well-
being; rather, it focuses on the factors that might, in theory, lead to success. I
discuss the macro- and micro-level factors contributing to success, analyze
why they are not present in Lebanon, and, finally, propose an elite sport policy
for the country.

Factors for a Country’s Success in Elite Sport

The global acknowledgment of the medal table arises from the fact that the
Olympic Games are the most universal, multidisciplinary competition in the
world. Evidence for this fact is the participation of 205 National Olympic
Committees in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. Due to the univer-
sality and media coverage of this event, most governments have decided to
invest substantial funds in the sports that are part of the Olympic program.12
The Olympic medal table is a ranking model that computes the gold, silver,
and bronze medals obtained by the different countries in the different sport-
ing events for every edition of the Summer and Winter Olympic Games. A
gold medal has superior value over any number of silver medals, and a silver
medal has superior value over any number of bronze medals. In the event of
two countries obtaining the same number of gold medals, the country with
more silver medals is better ranked. Likewise, in the case where two countries
obtain the same number of gold and silver medals, the country with more
bronze medals will be better ranked.
Scholars working on the identification of the factors behind success in
international sport generally use the number of medals won at the Olympics

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 THE CASE OF LEBANON

as a starting point of their analyses. Several authors have suggested analyzing

a country’s political,13 economic,14 and demographic situation at a macro
level,15 as a means to understand its performance. Other models like SPLISS
(Sport Policies Leading to International Sport Success),16 developed by De
Bosscher, and WISE (Women, Institutionalization, Specialization, Early
Learning),17 developed by Reiche, have advocated that more specific factors
at the meso and micro levels should also be considered in a comprehensive
model of a country’s success.

Macro-Level Factors

Political Factors

Seeking national pride, international prestige, or establishing public interest

in sport are indispensable in implementing a successful elite sport policy. Grix
and Carmichael claim that governments seek to win in sports for international
prestige, to create a ‘feel-good factor’ among the population, and to increase
participation. This strategy will consequently lead to a healthier nation.18
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s massive investment in Olympic
sports was driven by its will ‘to demonstrate the superiority of Soviet-style
communism over US-style capitalism.’19
Using sports as a political message was also the case for Egypt. The country’s
involvement in international competitions in the 1950s was a means for this
newly emerging regional power to demonstrate its rejection of Western impe-
rialism and colonialism.20 In Iran, the gold medal won at the 1956 Melbourne
Olympic Games by wrestler Gholamreza Takhti, who was politically con-
nected to the National Iranian Front, was a symbol of opposition to the shah
and British imperialism.21
Newly independent countries, such as Namibia,22 Morocco, Algeria,
Tunisia, Senegal, Benin, Congo, and Cameroon, also expanded national
sports programs to gain international political recognition.23 The same applies
to world powers such as France. At the 1960 Olympic Games held in Rome,
for the first time in its history France won no gold medals and finished in the
twenty-fifth position, the worst record in its Olympic history. This failure
caught the attention of French President General de Gaulle, who noted that a
country with the historical ‘weight’ of France should succeed in sports, since
such success indicates the strength of a country.24 In 1961, De Gaulle
appointed former elite mountaineer Maurice Herzog to spearhead a series of

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

reforms involving construction of sporting facilities all over France. By also

making physical education a compulsory subject in the French educational
curriculum, Herzog secured a large number of participants who could train
free of charge in all sports in villages, towns, and cities throughout France.
This establishment of elite sport centers in all the French territories included
those overseas, which followed suit.25 These centers allowed the best French
athletes, scouted by national federations, to live in a place where they could
engage in intensive training while keeping up with their studies. These meas-
ures allowed France to become one of the leaders at the Olympics, finishing in
the top ten in the last nine Summer editions, the last one being in 2016.

Economic Factors

Novikov and Maximenko have stated that successes at international competi-

tions are defined by the socioeconomic development of a country.26 Similarly,
the importance of wealth has been raised by Kiviaho and Makela,27 and also
by Rathke and Woitek who consider that money,28 combined with a large
population, determines the success of countries in sports. Many studies,
including those by Den Butter and van der Tak,29 Johnson and Ali,30 Hon-
Kwong and Suen,31 Van Tuyckom and Joreskog,32 and Andreff,33 have sup-
ported the idea that GDP, which is the result of wealth and population, is the
major factor behind success in sports. According to Kuper and Sterken,34 and
Moosa and Smith,35 the number of athletes and expenditure on healthcare are
the strongest variables for success. For Tcha and Pershin, ‘a country wins med-
als in a more diversified range of sports if its wealth increases or if it is a social-
ist country.’36

Demographic Factors
For Bernard and Busse, however, demography is not a major factor. They
showed that China, India, Indonesia, and Bangladesh, which accounted for
43 percent of the global population at the time, only won 6 percent of the
total medals at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. They explained that
‘first, countries cannot send athletes in proportion to their population for each
event, for example, in team competitions, where each country is determined
by the IOC in negotiation with the country’s Olympic committee. As a result,
not all the Olympic caliber athletes from a large country are able to partici-
pate.’37 Den Butter and van der Tak had a similar theory:

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A country with two times as many inhabitants as another country is not

expected to win two times as many Olympic medals. Or in the economists’ jar-
gon: the ‘production’ of Olympic medals is apparently subject to diseconomies
of scale with respect to population. This may partly be caused by the fact that
each country is only allowed to delegate a limited number of participants per
sporting event.38
Houlihan and Zheng have highlighted the importance of population by show-
ing that at the 2012 London Summer Olympics, the 50 percent of countries
with the lowest populations won only 11 percent of the medals.39

Cultural Factors
Sport being part of the culture of a country can also be an asset to attract
private sponsors. Indeed, sponsors usually intervene in a sport that can offer
visibility to their brand.40 In the United States of America, the country that
has collected the highest number of medals in Olympic history in elite sport,41
youth participate massively in school, church, and municipal sport competi-
tions. They are also enthusiastic followers of professional sporting competi-
tions.42 High numbers of fans attract private investors who will in turn fund
sporting development.

Meso- and Micro-Level Factors

To achieve international success, the establishment of a national sport policy
must take into consideration the political, economic, demographic, and cul-
tural factors. Green has reviewed the emergence of sport as a sector of public
policy from 1960 to 2002.43 By taking the example of England, he has focused
his studies on the development of elite sport policy in the mid-1990s.
Houlihan formulated a framework for analysis of a public sport policy that
starts at a meso level with the advocacy coalition model.44 The SPLISS and
WISE models are then used to identify the main characteristics of setting up
an elite sport policy.

SPLISS Model
The SPLISS network, created in 2003 and led by De Bosscher, develops and
shares expertise in elite sport policy in cooperation with policymakers,
National Olympic Committees, international sports organizations, and
researchers worldwide.45 Its goal is to create a framework for analysis related
to successful elite sport policy. SPLISS released its first results in 2008, and

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was followed up by the second results in 2015 with the participation of

researchers and policymakers from fifteen countries. The SPLISS model is
based on nine pillars of elite sport success, which are divided into three phases:
input, throughput, and output.46 The input phase consists of the first pillar:
financial support. The second phase, the throughput, is made up of the eight
other pillars:
• Governance, organization, and structure of elite sport policies;
• Participation in sports;
• Talent identification and development system;
• Athletic and post-career support;
• Training facilities;
• Coaching and coach development;
• (Inter-)national competition; and
• Scientific research.
The third and last phase, output, is concerned with the degree to which an
organization has achieved its goal. In the case of the Olympics, output is
related to the success or failure to win medals. According to De Bosscher et
al., establishing a successful elite sport policy goes beyond the output of win-
ning medals.47 It is a virtuous circle shaped by the outcome countries look for,
which is motivated by a national agenda.

The WISE Formula

Reiche identified four elements that he deems significantly more relevant, and
brings them together to form the WISE formula:48

Figure 1: Outcome searched by the establishment of successful elite sport policies49

INPUT
Pillar 1
OUTPUT
Financial support
Performance
THROUGHPUT
Winning medals
Pillar 2 to 9

OUTCOME:
National pride;
STAKEHOLDERS FEEDBACK
international prestige;
(elite sport climate)
good feeling;
public interest in sport

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 THE CASE OF LEBANON

– Promotion of women (W) in sport: developing women’s elite sport will

strongly enhance the potential of a country to win medals;50
– Institutionalization (I) of the promotion of Olympic sports: setting up a
centralized governmental sports system that offers the proper structure for
athletes to develop their skills is crucial to obtain results;51
– Specialization (S) in medal-promising sports: focusing on sports where
there are higher chances of winning medals is a commonly used method for
countries to achieve success;52
– Early (E) learning in sports has been newly added to the Olympic program
and gives countries opting for this strategy an advantage over rivals.53

Analyzing Success in Elite Sport using the Elite Sport Ranking of the
International Society of Sports Sciences in the Arab World (I3SAW)
The Olympic medal table, which only rewards the top three placed competi-
tors, can only include a limited number of countries. In fact, in the last
Olympic cycle (2014 Winter Olympics and 2016 Summer Olympics), despite
having a record number of countries winning medals, only eighty-seven coun-
tries were ranked. In order to address this issue, Nassif proposed a new ranking
methodology that allows the 206 countries that have National Olympic
Committees to be included:54
– A weighted points system that replaces the three-medal Olympic system;
– The introduction of universality and popularity coefficients for each sport;
and
– A computation model that attributes to each country its share of points in
at least one sport, and, consequently, its ranking in the ‘global sporting arms
race’ based on the total number of points, which a country would have
garnered in all sports.55
The I3SAW ranking, therefore, makes it possible for all national sport
authorities to gain an idea of their ranking in international sport competi-
tions. It also offers different results from the Olympic medal table, reward-
ing some countries (such as Spain, Argentina, and Brazil) that have been
successful in universal and popular sports (such as football, basketball, and
volleyball), and appropriately scaling those that mainly won medals in
minor sports. Indeed, Norway wins most of its medals in winter sports
where, compared with summer sports, a much smaller number of countries
participate.

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Table 1: Comparisons between the top 20 in the combined 2012–2014 Winter and
Summer Olympic medal table and the 2014 I3SAW elite sport ranking

Rank 2012–2014 Olympic medal table 2014 I3SAW elite sport ranking

1 USA USA
2 China Russia
3 Russia Germany
4 Great Britain China
5 Germany France
6 South Korea Japan
7 France Great Britain
8 Netherlands Australia
9 Norway South Korea
10 Canada Italy
11 Japan Spain
12 Italy Brazil
13 Switzerland Argentina
14 Hungary Mexico
15 Australia Netherlands
16 Ukraine Canada
17 Belarus New Zealand
18 Kazakhstan Poland
19 Czech Republic Hungary
20 Poland Ukraine

In Table 1, it can be observed that the countries in bold ranked in the top
20 in the I3SAW elite sport ranking are unranked in the top 20 of the
Olympic medal table. Meanwhile, the countries in italics ranked in the top 20
of the Olympic medal table are unranked in the top 20 of the I3SAW elite
sport ranking. Five countries present in the Olympic medal table top 20 were
absent in the I3SAW ranking, and vice versa.
A similar comparison is shown in Table 2 between the top 20 in the com-
bined 2014–2016 Winter and Summer Olympic medal table and the 2016
I3SAW elite sport ranking. Six countries present in the Olympic medal table
top 20 were absent in the I3SAW ranking, and vice versa.
By ranking all the countries, the goal is to provide a holistic comparative
approach to determine a framework of analysis for the factors behind success
in elite sport. For this purpose, the correlations of the 2014, 2015, and 2016
versions of this ranking with population,56 GDP, and scientific research out-
put rankings for the same years were measured. This comparative study has
been undertaken for the following reasons:

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Table 2: Comparisons between the top 20 in the combined 2014–2016 Winter and
Summer Olympic medal table and the 2016 I3SAW elite sport ranking

Rank 2014–2016 Olympic medal table 2016 I3SAW elite sport ranking

1 USA USA
2 Russia France
3 China Great Britain
4 Great Britain Germany
5 Germany Russia
6 Netherlands China
7 Canada Japan
8 France Australia
9 Japan South Korea
10 South Korea Italy
11 Norway Argentina
12 Switzerland Brazil
13 Australia Spain
14 Hungary Canada
15 Italy Netherlands
16 Brazil New Zealand
17 Spain Sweden
18 Belarus Mexico
19 Jamaica Czech Republic
20 Kenya Denmark

– Population and GDP rankings will show the impact of demography and
wealth, which were two of the macro-level factors identified by researchers
in the field.57 Those two rankings have been taken from the CIA World
Factbook;58
– Research output ranking will be examined, because the establishment and
optimization of meso- and micro-factors (governance, participation, talent
identification, athlete support, training facilities, coaching development,
scientific research, competition organization, promotion of women, insti-
tutionalization, sports specialization, and early learning), which were identi-
fied by De Bosscher et al.,59 and Reiche,60 cannot be achieved without
extensive knowledge of sports management, sports marketing, sports com-
munication, sports law, sports physiology, sports psychology, and sports
coaching. The research output ranking was taken from the website Scimago
Journal & Country Rank,61 which is a publicly available portal that includes
the journals and country scientific indicators developed from the informa-

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

tion contained in the Scopus website, a database gathering all the papers that
have been accepted for publication.
There will be no comparative study between sporting performance and any
indicator related to hard or soft political power, such as the Composite Index
of National Capability (CINC),62 or Comprehensive National Power
(CNP),63 both because they already include economic strength as one of their
variables, and because the political factor is related to a decision taken to suc-
ceed in sport, not to measurements like wealth and population that have a
direct impact on the countries’ performances.
The following were the results of the calculations of correlations between
the I3SAW ranking and the ones of the population, GDP, and research output
for the years 2014, 2015, and 2016:

Table 3: Results of the correlations between the I3SAW, population, GDP, and
research rankings for the years 2014, 2015, and 2016

Correlation sports ranking 2014 / population ranking 2014 0.39

Correlation sports ranking 2014 / GDP ranking 2014 0.78
Correlation sports ranking 2014 / research output ranking 2014 0.82
Correlation sports ranking 2015 / population ranking 2015 0.35
Correlation sports ranking 2015 / GDP ranking 2015 0.76
Correlation sports ranking 2015 / research output ranking 2015 0.81
Correlation sports ranking 2016 / population ranking 2016 0.34
Correlation sports ranking 2016 / GDP ranking 2016 0.76
Correlation sports ranking 2016 / research output ranking 2016 0.81

Table 3 shows that the correlation between a large population and good
sports results is weak; the correlation between a high GDP and good sporting
results is strong; and that the correlation between a high research output and
good sport results is very strong. Following these calculations, we can con-
clude therefore that having a large population is not an asset. For the countries
that have more than thirty million inhabitants, the correlation is even less
than 0.2, which is very weak.

Synthesis of the Factors Determining Countries’ Successes in Elite Sport

As mentioned earlier, Houlihan and Zheng stated that population is important
based on the fact that in the 2012 Olympics, the 50 percent of countries with
the lowest populations won only 11 percent of the medals.64 While recording
the performance of these small states, the scholars did not undertake an analysis

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of the more populous countries. Andrew and Busse highlighted that China,
India, Indonesia, and Bangladesh, which have 43 percent of the world’s popula-
tion, only collected 6 percent of the total number of medals in the 1996
Atlanta Games.65 Andrew and Busse and Den Butter and van der Tak explained
that the limited quota of athletes awarded to each country considerably reduces
the importance that size of population can have.66 By also looking at the cor-
relations between the I3SAW ranking and population for three consecutive
years, we can see that population has a much reduced impact.
While the importance of demography is undermined, there is question as
to the important contribution made by wealth, scientific knowledge, and the
expertise needed to implement elite sport policies at meso and micro levels,
components of which were measured by De Bosscher et al. and Reiche.67 Thus,
at a macro level, we can see that political interest and wealth are the major
factors behind a country’s success in the Olympics. With their holistic
approach, De Bosscher et al. and Reiche have given a detailed framework that
has identified the meso- and micro-factors. For De Bosscher et al., the base of
the pyramid of success is made up of financial support, organizational struc-
ture, and the number of participants. The next level is the existence of a sup-
port system, including scouting and support for athletes, provision of training
facilities, coaching programs, and organization of national and international
competitions. For Reiche, it is the combination of the implementation of a
governmental system that offers the proper support for athletes and the choice
of sports that offer more chance of success. After synthesizing macro-, meso-,
and micro-factors, we can say, therefore, that succeeding in sports starts first
with political interest and economic power. It is then followed by financing,
which depends on a country’s wealth, and the establishment of a structure that
offers the optimal conditions for athletes to succeed.

Implementing an Elite Sport Policy in Lebanon

The Case of Lebanon

The Lebanese sport movement started officially in 1933 with the founding of
the Lebanese Football Federation.68 In 1935, the Lebanese Football
Federation became a member of the International Federation of Association
Football (FIFA).69 Between 1943, the year of the country’s independence, and
1948, several Lebanese federations were created: wrestling, boxing, weightlift-
ing, basketball, volleyball, swimming, skiing, athletics, cycling.70 In 1947,
Gabriel Gemayel, elected IOC member in 1952, founded the Lebanese

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Olympic Committee.71 Since 1948, Lebanon has participated in every

Olympic Summer edition except 1956, when it boycotted the games to pro-
test against the French and British expedition in the Suez Channel after the
invasion of the Sinai by Israel.72 Although Gemayel’s project was to put
Lebanon on the global map, the country has only managed to win four medals
in seventy years.73 In fact, elite sport in Lebanon has never been a priority for
the government, and this is one of the main reasons behind the country’s dif-
ficulties in achieving success in international competitions. Comparing
Lebanon today to Estonia, Georgia, and Jamaica, confirms that political inter-
est, defined by the prioritization of sports by the government, is the first
stepping-stone in a country’s climb to success at the Olympic Games. As a
macro-level factor, it has more importance than a country’s wealth. Indeed, in
2015, Lebanon had a GDP of US$83 billion, more than three times that of
Jamaica (US$24.65 billion) and more than twice that of Estonia (US$37.55
billion) and Georgia (US$39.3 billion). Lebanese government expenditures
in 2015 were US$13.53 billion, more than three times the amount spent by
the governments of Jamaica (US$3.941 billion) and Georgia (US$4.142 bil-
lion), and one and a half times higher than Estonia (US$8.975 billion).
When it comes to sport, however, the annual budget allocated by the
Lebanese government to the Ministry of Sport is US$2 million.74 That is 200
times lower than that of Jamaica (US$400 million),75 175 times lower than that
of Estonia (US$350 million),76 and ten times lower than that of Georgia
(US$20 million).77 Lebanon’s budget for sport only represents 0.015 percent of
the country’s expenditure, while Jamaica’s expenditure is 10 percent, Estonia’s
expenditure is 3.9 percent, and Georgia’s expenditure is 0.5 percent.
Although less wealthy than Lebanon, sports in those three countries actu-
ally receive much higher governmental financial support, which is, as De
Bosscher et al. note, the first and most indispensable pillar of success, one that
optimizes the efficiency of the other eight pillars.78 The output of these pillars,
winning medals, demonstrates this fact: Lebanon has not won any medals
since 1992. On the other hand, Estonia, Georgia, and Jamaica have won
twenty, thirty-two, and fifty-eight medals, respectively, since that year. In the
2014, 2015, and 2016 I3SAW rankings, Lebanon was respectively ranked
95th, 97th, and 114th. For the same years, and in the same order, Estonia was
ranked 58th, 57th, and 58th; Georgia 65th, 62nd, and 62nd; and Jamaica
63rd, 43rd, and 56th.
In Jamaica, sport is more than a matter of national pride. For Olivia Grange,
Jamaican Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, success in

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elite sport will significantly impact GDP growth. She said that the Jamaican
government is committed to ‘move sport front and centre of economic
growth.’79 By promoting the ‘Jamaican brand’ through Jamaica House—a
marketing initiative promoting the popularity and success of superstar athletes
like Usain Bolt—in the 2017 World Athletics Championship in London,
Grange intended to exploit opportunities to promote Jamaican culture and
tourism and to ‘hopefully bring in new business.’80
The failure of Lebanon to win medals in the Olympics or to achieve a high
ranking in international sport is thus related to the limited importance placed
on sport in the agenda of the Lebanese government. This state of affairs does
not provide sufficient financial support that will allow the stakeholders of the
sporting movement to adopt the necessary strategies to succeed. As stated
previously, governments invest in elite sport to seek national identity, pride,
international prestige, diplomatic recognition, feel-good factors, and public
interest in sport.81 Why, despite having greater financial means than Jamaica,
is the Lebanese government not investing in elite sport? To answer this ques-
tion, it is important to examine the Lebanese political system and its vision of
sport, because as the literature on sport and politics has shown, understanding
the national sport program of a country cannot be undertaken without look-
ing into its national ideology.82
The successive foreign powers that occupied Lebanon and the eighteen
different religious communities that coexist in the country created a republic
that is constantly threatened by a fragile balance of power.83 To establish a
republic where the main characteristic would be a fair division of powers
among the various communities, each was allotted a quota in the government
related to their size in the Lebanese population.84 Lebanese politicians had
thought that this compromise—the multi-confessional political system—was
essential to secure political stability. But despite these measures, tensions
remained and have led to several major conflicts, the most devastating of
which was the civil war that tore the country apart between 1975 and 1990.
The influence of religious communities goes beyond the text of the
Constitution. Political ‘bargaining’ happens after every legislative election
(every four years) regarding the ‘distribution’ of the different ministries. The
search for a power balance among the different communities fails very often,
and instead turns into a struggle for power that regularly leads to the ‘freezing’
of government activities. This struggle for confessional overrepresentation is
systematically reproduced in the different sectors of Lebanese society, whether
in the areas of media, health, education, or sport.85 The struggle for political

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

overrepresentation in Lebanese sports is at the expense of developing a trans-

parent and functional national sport structure. Sport, like other governmental
institutions, reflects Lebanese political reality. Membership in the Lebanese
sports federation is often associated with under-the-table arrangements made
by various politicians,86 and the stakeholders of the sporting movement are
subject to political parties’ struggle for overrepresentation, which is the key
characteristic of the country’s political system. This concern to win an internal
political battle has overshadowed the will to succeed in international competi-
tions.87 This is one of the main reasons behind the derisory budget allocated
to elite sport, and the subsequent absence of macro-, meso-, and micro-level
strategies that could lead athletes to success. As of 2017, there are no policies
being implemented by the Lebanese Ministry of Youth and Sports (LMYS)
and the Lebanese Olympic Committee (LOC) regarding short-, medium-, or
long-term strategies targeting success at the Olympics.
According to Reiche,88 Lebanon encounters the same difficulties as other
developing countries in implementing elite sport policies. They lack government
funding and depend mainly on the support of the International Olympic
Committee. When Mazen Ramadan was head of the 2016 Lebanese Olympic
Delegation,89 a ‘Ministry of Youth and Sport Strategy 2010–2020’ was released,
but never implemented. This document included the following proposals: the
creation of a National Sports Academy for the training of elite athletes; and the
identification of sports where Lebanon could perform at an international level.
These two strategies can be associated with two of the components of a success-
ful elite sport policy according to Reiche’s framework:
• Institutionalization (I) of the promotion of Olympic sports by setting up a
centralized governmental sports system that offers the proper structure for
athletes to develop their skills.90
• Specialization (S) in medal-promising sports.91
The ‘Ministry of Youth and Sport Strategy 2010–2020’ was never imple-
mented. For Ramadan, developing elite sport is not a priority for the Lebanese
government.92 In the absence of government support, one has to look to pri-
vate or sponsor funding to finance athletes. Sponsors usually intervene in a
sport that can offer visibility to their brand.93 This is very problematic in the
Lebanese context considering the small fan base and consequently limited
television exposure.94 Competitive sport is not deeply embedded in Lebanese
culture, especially when it comes to the low number of fans and participants,95
which is the opposite of the situation of the United States, as mentioned

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above.96 Sport being part of the national culture is a major asset for two com-
ponents of a successful elite sport policy: financial support provided by spon-
sors (pillar 1 of the SPLISS model); and participation (pillar 3 of the SPLISS
model), which is necessary in order to have a sufficiently large pool of athletes
from which to select the most talented who will represent a country in inter-
national competitions. In Lebanon, people’s interest in elite sport does not
compensate for the government’s lack of interest. Aside from the small num-
ber of fans, the other reason behind sponsors’ lack of motivation is related to
the lack of transparency in the Lebanese federations and associations, dis-
cussed below.

Perspectives for Development

Without national political interest, success is impossible. By examining the

Lebanese sport funding model, we can identify the stakeholders who might
effect the changes needed for the improvement of elite sport results. In 2000,
the 247 Decree saw the establishment of the Lebanese Ministry of Youth and
Sports (LMYS), and a Parliamentary Committee of Youth and Sport (PCYS)
was created to vote on the budget of the LMYS.97 In collaboration with the
government, the PCYS participates in the preparation and approval phases of
the budget allocated to sport. Once the government gives its approval, funds
are sent to the LMYS to proceed with the implementation phase. Generating
public funds starts, therefore, with lobbying the PCYS and approval of the
Government. Without these actions, the LMYS and LOC will not be able to
undertake any relevant plan and would have to count on the private sector.
The latter was, and still is, generally hesitant to invest money because of the
corruption prevalent in the national federations, which are members of the
LOC and are responsible for developing their sport at a national level.98
Indeed, if we look at what happens during the implementation phase of
LMYS funding (itself quite meager), it is clear that sport in Lebanon also
suffers from an absence of audit and evaluation. According to LMYS officials,
an annual report indicating which federations and sports associations deserve
financial aid, based on their performance, is submitted to the LMYS. When
it comes to the implementation phase, however, they ‘most of the time’ receive
‘phone calls’ from high-profile politicians requesting a share of the funding for
their ‘friendly’ associations and federations, even if they are totally inactive.99
During a parliamentary session in 2010, deputy Member of Parliament Simon
Abi Ramia demanded that every sport association and federation submit a

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

financial report for the year 2010.100 Similarly, in April 2011, the late Antoine
Chartier, former president of the LOC, also asked the thirty-two federations
recognized by the LOC to submit a financial report for the year 2010.101 Both
Chartier and Abi Ramia’s requests received no response because of the ‘politi-
cal backing’ that national sport federations receive from political parties.102
Developing a national elite sport policy in Lebanon at a macro level should,
therefore, be achieved with the following steps:
• Lobbying from the PCYS to increase Lebanese government funding. This
funding can be done directly or through local communities. This will be
helped if major decisions towards the development of elite sport were taken
by high-level government officials, like the one of former French President
Charles De Gaulle initiated after the poor performance of the French
Olympic team at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games.103
• Establishing strict auditing measures to control the actions of the national
federations in order to attract private investors, which can be a substitute
for the government’s lack of funding or as a complement to it should the
government decide to increase its budget for sport.
Good governance in the national federations is also essential if efficient
actions are to be undertaken on the meso and micro levels. For Jihad Salame,
candidate for the position of Minister of Youth and Sports, administrative cor-
ruption in Lebanese sport is a ‘plague.’104 He was referring to the phenomenon
of people occupying key positions based on their political affiliations, rather
than on their skills and capacities. The meso- and micro-level strategies pro-
posed by Reiche and De Bosscher et al. must be implemented by the national
federations.105 These include the organization of sports policies, increasing sport-
ing participation, establishment of a talent identification system, support for
athletic careers, development of coaching programs, organization of national
and international competitions, promotion of women, development of sports-
related scientific research, and promotion of experts in sports policy, manage-
ment, coaching, and in the different fields of sports sciences.
Therefore, establishing a successful elite sport policy in Lebanon requires
implementing measures that will go from top to bottom. It has to start with a
political decision taken by the government to invest funds in order to succeed
in international competitions. This has to be followed by a system of good
governance undertaken by the LMYS and the LOC and must involve finan-
cial auditing. It must finally be completed with a plan at the meso and micro
levels targeting an increase in competitive sports participation for both gen-

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ders, development of a scouting and support system for elite athletes, and
scientific coaching programs. These actions are necessary for Lebanese athletes
to have an opportunity to improve their performance on the world stage.

Conclusion

This chapter has identified a state-supported national sports program as a key

factor in any country’s success in elite sport—one that is driven by a political
ideology striving towards international recognition through triumph in elite
sport. This is a prerequisite for the funding and proper policies that must be
implemented. The complexity of the Lebanese political system creates a situ-
ation whereby the stakeholders of the Lebanese sporting movement adopt
strategies targeting political overrepresentation and neglect adequate policies
for success in international competitions. A successful elite sports policy
should start with a change in the country’s political ideology. Lebanon does
not have the wealth to be a leader in the ‘global sporting arms race,’ but if elite
sport were to be more valued, and therefore better funded, the results can be
immensely improved. These developments will also be strengthened by a more
committed expertise in sport management and in quality coaching programs,
which will improve if the government undertakes transparency and good
governance reforms.
The will to succeed on the world’s sporting stage is more than a century old
and yet the science dedicated to pinpointing a holistic explanation of the
factors behind a country’s success in sport is relatively new, with the first
SPLISS network created in 2003 and the first congress of elite sport policy
taking place in November 2013 in Antwerp.106 This paper does not pretend to
give a ‘miracle success formula’ for sport in Lebanon; rather, its main aim is to
identify some general concepts leading to success.

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 9

LEGACIES OF MEGA-SPORTING EVENTS

IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

A CASE STUDY OF LEBANON

Danyel Reiche

Introduction

Governments all over the world justify spending public money on mega-
sporting events by claiming there are a multitude of benefits for the host com-
munity. A common argument is that mega-sporting events would give
tremendous exposure to host countries and increase their influence in global
politics.1 Apart from improving a country’s international prestige, mega-
sporting events are considered to be a valuable tool for fostering national pride
and unity, and, particularly relevant for emerging countries, for development.2
This chapter discusses the extent to which these anticipated benefits apply to
Lebanon. Internationally known for its 1975–1990 civil war, did hosting
mega-sporting events positively impact the tiny Mediterranean nation-state?
After the Lebanese civil war, the multi-religious country hosted four mega-
sporting events: two multi-sport events—the Pan-Arab Games in 1997 and

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

the Francophone Games in 2009—and two continental championships in

football and basketball—the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup
in 2000 and the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Asia Cup in
2017. The events illustrate the different identities of Lebanon as an Arab,
Asian, and Francophone country. With reference to the 1959 Mediterranean
Games in Beirut, which are not studied in detail in this chapter, one could also
add the Mediterranean identity of the Lebanese people.
This research is relevant because the academic literature on mega-sporting
events neglects the role of small, developing countries as hosts. While there is
a rich body of academic literature on mega-sporting events, most of this work
focuses on the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games, events that are
mainly hosted by large, developed countries such as the United States, Japan,
and the United Kingdom.3 A recent trend is for these events to be hosted by
emerging countries such as Brazil (FIFA World Cup 2014, Summer Olympic
Games 2016), China (Summer Olympic Games 2008, Winter Olympic
Games 2022), and South Africa (FIFA World Cup 2010) that have large
populations and maintain leading roles in regional politics. An exception to
this trend is Qatar, a small country with a population of about 2.7 million
people (a vast majority of which are not citizens of the country) that will host
the FIFA World Cup 2022. However, Qatar is economically very strong and
the per-capita income in the Gulf country is one of the highest in the world.
The author has argued in a previous publication that hosting the FIFA World
Cup 2022 and other mega-sporting events is a soft power tool for Qatar that
also serves national security purposes.4
Only twenty-four countries have ever hosted the Summer or Winter
Olympics in the entire history of the Games (1896–2018). The remaining 182
National Olympic Committees (NOCs) that were recognized by the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) in February 2018 have never
hosted the Olympics.5 While some emerging countries such as South Africa
and India may be hosts in the future, a vast majority of countries will most
likely never be able to host the Games due to their economy, geography, cli-
mate, or other factors.6 The FIFA Men’s World Cup has been hosted by even
fewer countries than the Summer and Winter Olympic Games. In 2018,
Russia became the seventeenth, and in 2022 Qatar will be the eighteenth,
country to host the FIFA World Cup, a tournament that began in 1930. This
means that only 8.53 percent of the 211 FIFA members (as of February 2018)
have ever hosted the Men’s World Cup.7
By mainly focusing on the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games,
events that are classified by Horne as ‘Tier 1 sports-mega events’,8 research

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neglects two important characteristics of mega-sporting events: first, a vast

majority of mega-sporting events are continental and regional games (‘Tier 2’
and ‘Tier 3’ events in Horne’s terminology) and, second, not all hosts are
large, developed nation-states. Horne argues that ‘lower order mega-events
can act as “springboards” for cities to go on to bid to host first order mega-
events.’9 This might apply to a large country like India that hosted the 2010
Commonwealth Games and that may one day host the FIFA World Cup or
the Summer Olympics. However, many Tier 2 and Tier 3 events are hosted by
small, developing countries that are often considered part of the global periph-
ery—for them, continental and regional games are the most they can achieve
as a host country of mega-sporting events.
This research is a case study of experiences with hosting mega-sporting
events in developing countries. The article follows a comparative approach by
analyzing the legacies of four mega-sporting events hosted by Lebanon: the
Pan-Arab Games in 1997; the AFC Asian Cup in 2000; the Francophone
Games in 2009; and the FIBA Asian Cup in 2017. The comparative approach
examines the similarities and differences of the four events, identifying pat-
terns in Lebanon’s previous experiences in hosting mega-sporting events and,
in broader conclusions at the end of the chapter, determining if it is beneficial
for a small, developing country to bid for mega-sporting events in the future.
The Lebanon case-study findings are applicable to other developing countries,
and contribute to a broader understanding of the topic of developing coun-
tries hosting mega-sporting events. While there may be some characteristics
unique to Lebanon, such as hosting sporting events in the context of rebuild-
ing the country after the civil war, many findings of this work also apply to
other developing countries that have hosted mega-sporting events.
Governments and representatives of sport governing bodies often use the
term ‘legacy’ to justify what are often costly bids for mega-sporting events. But
what exactly does legacy mean, and how can the term be operationalized?
What variables should be examined when investigating the legacy of mega-
sporting events in a developing country like Lebanon? For Cornelissen, hosts
of mega-sporting events aim ‘to showcase economic achievements, to signal
diplomatic stature or to project, in the absence of other forms of international
influence, soft power.’10 Nye coined the term ‘soft power’, defined as the ‘ability
to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. …
When you can get others to admire your ideals and to want what you want,
you do not have to spend as much on sticks and carrots to move them in your
direction. Seduction is always more effective than coercion.’11 What is relevant

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for the case of a small, developing country like Lebanon is Nye’s belief that
‘soft power is available to all countries, and many invest in ways to use soft-
power resources to “punch above their weight” in international politics. …
Even if they do not have the overall power resources to match the largest
countries, smaller or less powerful countries still can present challenges greater
than their military size would imply.’12
For Horne, ‘symbolic politics—the promotional politics of promotional
culture via public diplomacy, “soft power” and/or propaganda—are funda-
mental features of the contemporary politics of sports mega-events. Whether
competing with other cities or nations to host an event, winning the right to
do so, or actually hosting an event, the potential for symbolic power plays, or
pitfalls, are real.’13 Harris, Skillen, and McDowell argue that ‘fostering a tem-
porary “feel-good factor” is the most that many mega-sporting events can ever
achieve.’14 Horne emphasizes that the outcome of hosting mega-sporting
events may not always be positive for the image of a country: ‘All such exer-
cises in promotional politics—nation branding, city branding, image altera-
tion—run the danger of heightening reputational risk to the bidders (and
eventual hosts) involved.’15 An example is the case of Qatar, and the critical
discussions in the international media on the situation of migrant workers in
the country.16
The analysis of the legacies of the Pan-Arab Games in 1997, the AFC Asian
Cup in 2000, the Francophone Games in 2009, and the FIBA Asian Cup in
2017 is divided into two parts, following Horne’s differentiation between
tangible and intangible legacies of mega-sporting events. Tangible legacies
refer to ‘substantial and long standing changes to the urban infrastructure’,
while ‘intangible legacies of sports mega-events refer predominantly to popu-
lar memories, evocations and analyses of specific moments and incidents
associated with an event.’17
There is a dearth of academic literature on the four events discussed in this
article. There are two articles on the Pan-Arab Games, one of which also dis-
cusses the 1997 Games in Beirut, while the other highlights earlier games
including the 1957 Pan-Arab Games in Beirut.18 There is one general article
on the history of the AFC Asian Cup with a special emphasis on the 2015
edition in Australia that does not discuss the tournament hosted by Lebanon
in 2000.19 There is no published work on the Francophone Games or the
FIBA Asia Cup. Because of this limited body of academic literature on the
four mega-sporting events hosted by Lebanon after the civil war, a review of
press articles (secondary sources) as well as collection of primary data through

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interviews are important sources for the empirical part of this research, as
elaborated below.
In analyzing Lebanon’s intangible legacies from the four events, there is an
internal and external promotional discourse that must be taken into consid-
eration. Lebanon is a ‘mosaic society’ with eighteen state-registered religious
sects.20 The internal discourse considers the enthusiasm of the Lebanese peo-
ple around the four events. Were the sporting events well attended? Were the
local athletes successful? Did they contribute to what the aforementioned
academic literature calls a ‘feel-good factor’ and a sense of national pride?
Since few international tourists travelled to the four mega-sporting events,
opting instead to follow the events in the media, this makes the media key in
measuring the perception of the events outside Lebanon because soft power
depends, according to Nye, on the recipient.21 But even within Lebanon, most
people followed the events in the media and did not attend events. I have
therefore reviewed press articles published prior to, during, and after the
events. Which issues were highlighted in the local and international media
about the four events? Were reports in the international media positive for
Lebanon’s prestige, or did they mainly highlight negative issues, such as prob-
lems with the organization of the events or the political instability within the
country? In short, did the press articles positively or negatively affect
Lebanon’s image?
After elaborating on the intangible legacies, I explore the tangible legacies
of the Pan-Arab Games in 1997, the AFC Asian Cup in 2000, the
Francophone Games in 2009, and the FIBA Asian Cup in 2017. While it is
not possible to evaluate the long-term effects of the relatively recent FIBA
Asian championship in 2017, more reliable statements can be made about the
other three events that took place in 1997, 2000, and 2009. How much did
Lebanon benefit from the Pan-Arab Games in 1997, the AFC Asian Cup in
2000, and the Francophone Games in 2009? Did these events lead to substan-
tial long-lasting change in Lebanon by improving the sports sector and help-
ing the country overall? Or are the legacies primarily negative, such as unused
and unmaintained purpose-built stadiums and facilities?

Methodology

One research limitation is the lack of surveys available that gauge how the
public perceived hosting the four mega-sporting events. However, apart from
reviewing the academic literature and press articles, I collected primary data

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by interviewing key stakeholders in the Lebanese sports sector that have been
involved in one or more of the four events. The objective of the interviews was
to learn about the respondents’ views on the tangible as well as intangible lega-
cies of the Pan-Arab Games in 1997, the AFC Asian Cup in 2000, the
Francophone Games in 2009, and the FIBA Asian Cup in 2017. I conducted
eight in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Lebanese stakeholders. The
chosen format of asking a series of open-ended questions had the advantages
of allowing more fluid interactions with respondents and of providing a multi-
perspective understanding of the topic by not limiting respondents to a fixed
set of answers.22 Furthermore, as a professor in Lebanon since 2008, I have
directly experienced the unit under study, regularly interacted with sports
officials, attended several basketball and football games at the 2009
Francophone Games, as well as football matches of Lebanese clubs or the
Lebanese national men’s team in stadiums that were built for the 1997 Pan-
Arab Games and the 2000 AFC Asian Cup.
The interviews were held in person, with the exception of one interview
conducted via telephone. Some sources were interviewed on more than one
occasion. The interviewees are as follows: 1) a member of the Lebanese
National Olympic Committee (NOC); 2) the president of the Lebanese
Basketball Federation; 3) a senior editor of Al Hayat newspaper, who also
served as media officer for the AFC Asian Cup in 2000 and as president of the
Lebanese Cycling Federation in the 1997 Pan-Arab Games; 4) the president
of Lebanon’s largest and most successful sports club, Mont La Salle (the sports
club venue that hosted the fencing, karate, taekwondo, and table tennis events
at the 1997 Pan-Arab Games), and a member of the organizing committees
for the 1997 Pan-Arab Games and the 2000 AFC Cup; 5) a professor from
the Lebanese University Antonine who wrote a dissertation on Lebanon’s
football history from 1907–2007, a period of time that included the 1997
Pan-Arab Games and the 2000 AFC Asian Cup; 6) and another professor
from the Lebanese University Antonine who wrote a dissertation on the 2009
Francophone Games where she served as executive director of the organizing
committee; 7) a professor from the Notre Dame University Lebanon who
specializes in Lebanese sports and has published on corruption in the domes-
tic sports sector, an aspect relevant for discussing the legacy of the four mega-
sporting events hosted by Lebanon; 8) and a staff member from the Ministry
of Finance who gave her perspective in order to better understand the govern-
ment’s sport budget, information that is not publicly available.

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Intangible Legacies

The Lebanese government and particularly Rafiq Hariri, prime minister from
1992–1998 and 2000–2004, supported the bids for the 1997 Pan-Arab
Games, the 2000 AFC Asian Cup, and the 2009 Francophone Games as a
symbol of rebuilding the country and post-war recovery. The initial idea was
to host the three mega-sporting events within a brief period of time. However,
Lebanon’s first two bids for the Francophone Games in 2001 and 2005 were
unsuccessful. Unlike the events in 1997, 2000, and 2009, the government was
not behind the bid for the FIBA Asia Cup 2017; the initiative came solely
from the basketball federation. However, the government eventually sup-
ported the event. After a meeting with the head of the Lebanese Basketball
Federation, President Aoun stated, ‘All the required support will be provided
to ensure the success of this championship, which will be widely covered by
media to convey Lebanon’s bright side to the exterior.’23
Before the civil war, Lebanon hosted two major regional sporting events:
the Pan-Arab Games in 1957 and the Mediterranean Games in 1959. The first
mega-sporting event in Lebanon after the civil war was the Pan-Arab Games
1997, which was ‘established by the League of Arab Nations in 1953 as a
means of expressing cultural unity between Arab peoples across nation-state
boundaries.’24 According to Silva and Gerber, ‘the Arab Games offered an
opportunity to temporarily overcome the borders of the individual Arab
countries set by the colonial powers after World War I.’25 However, the Pan-
Arab Games in 1997 in Beirut did not only unite Arab countries but also
reflected ‘the tensions within the pan-Arab project.’26 The Iraqi team was
banned from participation, which became one of the most reported issues of
the 1997 Pan-Arab Games. Pressured by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, two coun-
tries that provided financial assistance to Lebanon for rebuilding the country
after the civil war, Lebanon decided not to issue visas to the ninety-seven Iraqi
athletes who had already travelled to the Syrian–Lebanese border and who,
ultimately, had to return home. The British newspaper The Independent
quoted the head of the Kuwait Olympic Committee saying, ‘if Iraq’s teams
even turned up, Kuwait’s 277 athletes would march around the track at the
opening ceremony waving photographs of the 600 Kuwaiti prisoners kid-
napped by Iraq and never released after the liberation of the emirate in 1991.’27
As a consequence of the boycott, Iraq announced it would freeze business ties
with Lebanon.28 Another incident at the 1997 Pan-Arab Games that reflected
tensions among Arab countries was fan violence by Syrian spectators after
their national men’s football team lost to Jordan in the final of the tourna-

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

ment. According to an article in the Jerusalem Post, ‘some 30,000 Syrians

destroyed an estimated 400 seats and hurled rubbish and empty bottles at the
players while Syrian players beat and kicked Lebanese photographers, wit-
nesses said.’29
This was not the first time that politics had interfered in the Pan-Arab Games.
When Lebanon hosted the event in 1957, well before the civil war, Egypt
abstained from the Games. From a political perspective, Egypt’s absence could
also indicate that the different paths of Lebanon and Egypt to interact and trade
with the international community might have prevented the participation of
Egypt. Because Western countries refused to sell arms to Egypt, President Nasser
turned to the Communist bloc. In September 1955, he announced that Egypt
would obtain arms from Czechoslovakia. Lebanon, on the other hand, turned
to the United States in 1957 because President Camille Chamoun believed that
Nasser was a direct threat to Lebanon’s independence.30
Further, Lebanon refused to invite Israel to the Mediterranean Games in
1959. The Lebanese Organizing Committee argued that an invitation to Israel
would not be possible because of the daily incidents at the Lebanese–Israeli
border, resistance from all Arab countries, and security concerns for Israeli
athletes in Lebanon.31 This incident is relevant to better understand why
Lebanon has only hosted regional and continental events, and never global
sporting events. ‘It is the policy of all international sporting federations that
the host country of world championships and other international competi-
tions must issue entry visas for participants, regardless of their country of
belonging or personal characteristics such as religion, race, gender, etc.’32
Unlike both the Pan-Arab Games in 1957 and 1997 and the Mediterranean
Games 1959, the AFC Asian Cup 2000, the Francophone Games 2009, and
the FIBA Asian Cup 2017 did not face any political boycotts. The AFC Asian
Cup is a continental competition that was founded in 1956 and held every
four years. According to Rowe, the AFC Asian Cup has an ‘identity as both a
regional and global sporting event’,33 because it involves the ‘world game’ of
association football, because Asia is of increasing importance to global sport,
and because it ‘attracts interest from Asian diasporas and, ironically, from fans
who track Europe-based elite club footballers.’34
The Francophone Games are a multi-sporting event for mostly French-
speaking countries—Lebanon was under French mandate from 1923–1946.
French schools and universities and the popularity of the French language,
particularly among Christians, are a heritage of more than two decades of
French control over Lebanon (and Syria). The Francophone Games were

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established in 1989, and the 2009 Games in Beirut were the sixth edition of
the event. Lebanon’s bids for hosting the Francophone Games 2001 and 2005
were unsuccessful. In 2001, the Games took place in the Canadian province
of Quebec and, in 2005, in the West African country Niger, before Lebanon’s
bid was finally successful and the Games were staged in Beirut in the fall of
2009. While it took much effort to get the Francophone Games awarded to
Beirut, Lebanon was more successful in the cases of the AFC Asian Cup, the
Pan-Arab Games, and the FIBA Asia Cup.
The 1996 Pan-Arab Games were originally awarded to Lebanon, but due to
‘Operation Grapes of Wrath,’ a sixteen-day Israeli campaign against Lebanon
in April 1996, as well as the lack of funds and unfinished facilities, the event
was postponed by one year to 1997. Typically, there is not much competition
in bidding processes for the Pan-Arab Games. Megheirkouni believes this is
due to the weakness of the Arab economies—with the exception of Gulf
countries—the lack of stability, and ‘the absence of consensus on political
issues such as Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Iraq.’35 As a result of the Arab uprisings
and the war in Syria, there have been no Pan-Arab Games since the 2011
edition in Doha.
Lebanon also did not face competition for hosting the FIBA Asian cham-
pionship. The primary reason for the lack of interest from other countries is
due to the fact that, unlike previous editions, the event did not serve as a
qualification event for the FIBA World Cup or the Olympic Games. ‘Nobody
wanted this event’ was an often-used phrase during interviews for this chapter.
Being awarded the AFC Asian Cup and the Francophone Games is much
more difficult than hosting the Pan-Arab Games and the FIBA Asia Cup.
Winning the right to host the AFC Asian Cup 2000 was a significant soft
power success for Lebanon. The country won the bid against the Asian pow-
erhouse China. This is ‘the biggest event our country will ever host,’ said the
Lebanese sports minister enthusiastically in response to the good news.36 Prior
to the AFC Asian Cup 2000, however, many articles were published in the
international media raising concerns that the facilities would not be ready in
time. Headlines read, ‘Lebanon is not ready to host Asian Cup’,37 and culmi-
nated in an ‘Ultimatum to Lebanon’ two months prior to the tournament
with discussions on transferring the event to another country. To help ease
tensions, the Lebanese president had to publicly announce that all work
would be completed in time.38
The four mega-sporting events, and particularly their opening ceremonies,
gave members of the Lebanese government the opportunity to make positive

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statements about Lebanon that were reported in the domestic and interna-
tional media. At the opening ceremony of the Pan-Arab Games 1997, the
Lebanese President Elias El-Harawi said that ‘the decision of the Arab coun-
tries to hold the games in Lebanon affirmed their trust in the country’s
achievements.’ He also stated, ‘from Lebanon we say to the world, the
Lebanese have returned to their heritage and unity, they have returned to
build a Lebanon for heroes, youth and peace.’39 President Aoun also used the
word ‘trust’ when making a public statement prior to the 2017 FIBA Asia
Cup, stating that the event ‘proved the international trust in Lebanon, and in
security and stability in the country.’40 At the opening ceremony of the 2009
Francophone Games, Lebanese President Michel Sleiman emphasized
Lebanon’s diversity and tolerance: ‘Today’s event underlines that Beirut is the
mother of dialogue. [It is a city] that embraces West and East. … This event
emphasizes Lebanon’s presence in the Arab world as a democratic state that
brings together all people.’41 Similarly, Lebanese Education Minister Bahia
Hariri said that the Lebanese people should ‘be proud that their country is
back on the world map.’42 What supported the sentiment of being ‘back on
the map’ was the presence of prominent members of foreign governments and
sports governing bodies at the events. Juan Antonio Samaranch, President of
the International Olympic Committee from 1980–2001, visited Lebanon for
the Pan-Arab Games; Sepp Blatter, FIFA President from 1998–2015,
attended the AFC Asian Cup; and the National News Agency reported that
French Prime Minister François Fillon and approximately forty cabinet mem-
bers from participating countries were present at the 2009 Francophone
Games opening ceremony.
During mega-sporting events, countries are in the spotlight of the interna-
tional media. The Observer, the Sunday newspaper of the British daily The
Guardian, published an enthusiastic article about Lebanon prior to the AFC
Asian Cup. Author Matthew Beard wrote that ‘Lebanon has undergone a
remarkable recovery from the ravages of a fifteen-year civil war. And in the
sporting arena, too, this once benighted country is now making impressive
progress.’ Beard concluded that the Asian Cup ‘offers this beautiful country
the chance to establish itself again on the tourist map through sport.’43 It is
important to mention that this article was published before the continental
football championship began. During the event, the media shed light on the
low number of spectators attending the matches. Apart from the first two out
of three Lebanese national team matches and the final between Japan and
Saudi Arabia (which Japan won), no match attracted more than 10,000 fans.

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Asian Football Confederation General Secretary Dato Velappan said ‘these

were not stadiums but cemeteries.’44 The FIBA Asia 2017 championship did
not attract spectators either; only Lebanese national team matches were well
attended. While the 1997 Pan-Arab Games were, according to Nassif, ‘a sig-
nificant success because, for the first time since the end of the war, the
Lebanese people took notice of the existence of its sport movement’,45 the low
attendance again became a much-discussed topic at the 2009 Francophone
Games. Despite free tickets, only 20,000 spectators attended the opening
ceremony. I attended several football and basketball matches, all of which
attracted only a few hundred spectators. Three days after the Games in Beirut
had ended, Patrick Galey authored an article titled ‘Why people only chose to
see the worst in the Francophone Games’ in Lebanon’s English newspaper The
Daily Star, in which he concluded: ‘It is indeed a triumph for organizers that
the games were held on time, in full, and without major security incidents. It
is just a shame that more people didn’t choose to witness them.’46
According to a study cited in The Daily Star ‘the coverage was mostly lim-
ited to the official media sponsor of the games, Future TV, while Manar TV
didn’t show any interest in the event.’47 This reflects the sectarian fractions
within Lebanese society that is politically divided into two blocs, March 8
(pro-Iranian) and March 14 (pro-Western and supported by Saudi Arabia).
The TV station Al-Manar is affiliated with Hezbollah, an Islamist political
party supported by Iran that belongs to the March 8 bloc. Future TV, founded
by former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, is affiliated with his political party, the
Future Movement, which belongs to the March 14 bloc. The pro-Western
stance of the March 14 bloc explains the support of Future TV for the
Francophone Games that were initiated by France, a leading Western power.
While not all Lebanese consider themselves as Francophone, an Arab identity
is prevalent among Muslims as well as Christians. Christian sport clubs such
as Mont La Salle, for instance, hosted events at the 1997 Pan-Arab Games.
The low attendance may be related to the lack of sporting success among
domestic athletes. An exception was the 1997 Pan-Arab Games when
Lebanon won seventy-six medals and finished eighth in the medal count.
However, when Lebanon hosted the Pan-Arab Games forty years earlier in
1957, it was the most successful country—a fact that can also be explained by
Egypt’s absence, as mentioned previously.48 At the AFC Cup in 2000,
Lebanon did not win a match and did not advance beyond the group stage.
At the 2009 Francophone Games, Lebanon won only four medals: two in
sports, and two in cultural events, which are not part of the Olympics, the

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Asian Cup, or the Pan-Arab Games.49 Winning the FIBA Asia Cup 2017 was
one of the main motivations for hosting the event according to the president
of the Lebanese Basketball Federation. However, Lebanon made it only as far
as the quarter-finals, where it lost to Iran.
Another contributing factor to poor attendance was that the best athletes
did not compete. Henry, Amara, and Mansour Al-Tauqi note that ‘recently
some countries have preferred to abstain from participation in the Pan-Arab
Games in order to prepare or participate in other international sporting events
which they consider to be more important.’50 They provide the example of
Egypt withdrawing its men’s national football team—the most successful in
Africa—from the 1997 Games in Lebanon as well as from the 1999 Pan-Arab
Games in Jordan, incidents that ‘illustrate a decrease in the importance and
the significance of the games.’51
At the 2009 Francophone Games, no matches for men’s teams were sched-
uled in basketball, the most popular sport in Lebanon after football. There were
two groups of national women’s teams, and the best two teams in each group
made it to the semi-final. However, the Lebanese women finished third in their
group and did not qualify for the semi-final, tempering Lebanese excitement. In
football, only national men’s teams competed. The under-20 national teams
represented the participating countries. Football stars from the French League
1, for example, were missing from the tournament. The Lebanese national team
did not win a match and was eliminated at the group stage.
Similarly, at the 2017 FIBA Asian Cup, some countries did not send their
best players. For example, none of the Australian NBA players were present at
the tournament in Lebanon because the continental basketball championship
was not a qualifying event for the Olympic Games or for the FIBA World
Cup.52 A naturalized Philippines basketball player, Andray Blatche, famous
for playing nine years in the NBA for the Washington Wizards and Brooklyn
Nets before moving to China, cancelled his participation in the FIBA Asian
Cup in Lebanon because of security concerns.53

Tangible Legacies

A major achievement of the mega-sporting events hosted by Lebanon after the

civil war was the rebuilding of the Sports City Stadium in Beirut, which
served as a venue for the opening ceremonies at the 1997 Pan-Arab Games,
the 2000 AFC Asian Cup (and most matches during the tournament), as well
as the 2009 Francophone Games. It was inaugurated at the 1957 Pan-Arab

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Games, but was destroyed during the Israeli invasion in 1982. When it was
rebuilt for the 1997 Pan-Arab Games, Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri empha-
sized the symbolic importance of the reconstruction, noting that it ‘marked
the day when construction won over destruction and peace over war, adding
Israel turned the Sports City into a cemetery but it has become a place for
unity, peace, and Arab solidarity.’54 Similarly, when Lebanon hosted the AFC
Asian Cup, the vice president of the Asian Football Confederation stated,
‘Our main objective from [sic] holding the tournament here was to help
Lebanon build high-standard football arenas. We’re very satisfied with what
this beautiful country has achieved.’55 Further, AFC Secretary General Peter
Velappan said, ‘Lebanon has two new stadiums in Tripoli and Sidon. The
Sport City is back again to life. All these things among others are the legacies
of the Asian Cup.’56
While these statements are all very positive, those interviewed for this
research were less enthusiastic about the outcome of mega-sporting events in
Lebanon. ‘The only positive thing is we managed to organize the events with-
out any major problems’, one researcher said.57 ‘There is no lasting legacy’, a
representative from a sport’s governing body noted.58 ‘We are repeating the
same mistakes’, added an interviewee involved in organizing the 1997 and
2000 events.59 Some reasons for the negative perception cited in the inter-
views are: the heavy financial burden for Lebanon; ‘white elephants’, a term
that refers to unused facilities after mega-sporting events; the lack of mainte-
nance of the facilities; and corruption.
Regarding the Pan-Arab Games in Lebanon in 1997, Henry, Amara, and
Mansour Al-Tauqi further conclude that ‘the project merely represented costly
items of little merit at this stage in Lebanon’s reconstruction program.’60
When Lebanon was awarded the right to host the Pan-Arab Games, the 1994
conference of sports ministers of the Arab League member-states promised to
provide the necessary finances, ‘but only Saudi Arabia, which donated $20
million, and Kuwait, which extended $6.35 million, have honored their obli-
gations. The rest of the $75 million costs incurred so far has been footed by
the Lebanese government.’61 While Saudi Arabia and Kuwait helped Lebanon
financially in 2000, the main donors in 2009 were France, which donated $10
million, and Canada, which donated $1 million.62 French institutions in
Lebanon also helped in organizing the cultural events that are part of the
Francophone Games. ‘Without French help we could not have hosted the
Games’, stated the former director of the Francophone Games during an inter-
view.63 However, the external financial help did not pay all bills. Interviews

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 SPORT, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

held during the summer of 2017 revealed that numerous fees, such as for hotel
rooms to accommodate athletes and officials, had not been paid eight years
after the event, making the Francophone Games an economic burden for some
Lebanese businesspeople.
There was no external financial support for the FIBA Asian Cup 2017. The
Lebanese Basketball Federation even had to pay a $1.7 million royalty fee to
FIBA Asia, explained the president of the federation in an interview for this
research.64 The Lebanese government helped with financial support of $1
million, and the municipality refurbished the existing Nohad Nawfal Sports
Complex in Zouq Mkayel that hosted all matches. The 8,000-seat complex
was used for the FIBA Asian Cup and serves as the home site for the Tadamon
Zouk basketball team.
Unlike Sports City and the stadium in Zaida, the Olympic Stadium in the
Northern Lebanese city Tripoli is a ‘white elephant.’ Built for the 2000 AFC
Asian Cup, the Olympic Stadium is one of three venues built for the tourna-
ment, including Sports City in Beirut and Saida International Stadium.
During an interview in summer 2017, the spokesperson for the Lebanese
Football Federation stated that ‘there have been only about 25 matches in the
stadium since the AFC Asian Cup in 2000.’65 The local football club Tripoli
SC plays in a different stadium, the Tripoli Municipal Stadium. Apart from
the main problem that no local club regularly uses the venue, the facility is in
poor condition. A media article prior to the 2000 Asian Cup read: ‘the poor
state of the Tripoli pitch has the AFC worried.’66 According to a researcher
specialized in Lebanese football history interviewed for this work, the sta-
dium never fulfilled AFC norms and has problems due to its poor location
directly by the sea producing poor soil quality. ‘Experts had recommended a
different location,’ he said.67 The stadium in Zaida is also located directly by
the Mediterranean Sea, a contributing factor to rust. According to Rowe,
when mega-sporting events are prepared, there is a ‘relationship between sta-
dium design and global communication.’68 Often, the main criteria for new
stadiums is that the location promises spectacular images on television, as it
does in Saida and Tripoli, to boost tourism instead of putting most of the
focus on the long-term use of the facility. The issue is comparable to the FIFA
World Cup 2010 stadium in Cape Town, South Africa, which is hardly used
and remains a ‘national burden.’69
A common narrative among policymakers is that Lebanon lacks the
resources to maintain its sports facilities. However, according to the Ministry
of Finance, the draft budget law for 2017 includes 350 million LBP

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($228,000) for maintenance of the Olympic Stadium in Tripoli and 1.31

billion LBP ($850,000) for Sports City in Beirut.70 Given the poor state of
both stadiums, many interviewees questioned whether the money is actually
used for maintenance. I attended several matches in Sports City and remem-
ber it as an extremely dirty venue in very poor shape. For example, it was
possible to detach the seat, which can lead to injuries in the stadium if specta-
tors throw their seats at other attendees in acts of violence.
A member of Lebanon’s NOC also recounted that when he was overseeing
a cleaning prior to an event at Sports City in 2013, flags from the 2009
Francophone Games were found years later, even though it was likely that
several cleaning bills were issued between 2009 and 2013. Consequently,
when asked about the legacy of mega-sporting events in Lebanon, many
responses referred to corruption. ‘The money goes not to the right person’,
said one interviewee.71 Another representative from a sport’s governing body
said, ‘in other countries people might steal 10 or 20 percent of the money. But
100 percent, like here?’ He concluded that Lebanon should not host any
mega-sporting events ‘because such events are just used to create funds to steal
money.’72 A researcher concurred by saying that ‘big projects in Lebanon take
place for personal gain, not the public good.’73 The former director of the
Francophone Games said, ‘I asked France not to transfer money because it
would disappear and requested to rather send us equipment.’74 These state-
ments reflect the pervasiveness of corruption in Lebanon. In the 2016
Corruption Perceptions Index issued by Transparency International, Lebanon
is ranked 136 out of 176 listed countries.75
In an interview with a researcher, it was suggested that Lebanon should not
host any mega-sporting events before a proper auditing system was introduced
that clearly shows how public money is distributed. He also noted that there
are fictitious sports clubs in Lebanon: ‘they don’t do anything but get financial
help.’76 Other stakeholders interviewed refer to Lebanon’s sporting failure at
the hosted events and suggested to first invest in athletic development before
bidding for events. ‘We don’t learn from our mistakes’, said an interviewee
involved in the organization of the 1997 Pan-Arab Games and the 2000 AFC
Asian Cup;77 a representative from a sport’s governing body also involved in
both the 1997 and 2000 events said, ‘there is no long-term thinking in
Lebanon’;78 a researcher further noted: ‘we do not have in Lebanon a process
to form human resources for maintenance and how to manage sports infra-
structure’;79 and another researcher stated, ‘most people in the Lebanese sports
sector are not competent and do not have any sports management back-

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ground.’80 In order to address these problems, in his research on mega-sporting

events, Horne suggests engaging in a properly funded legacy management
program that is able to continue for some years after the event.81

Conclusion

By hosting the Pan-Arab Games in 1997, the AFC Asian Cup in 2000, the
Francophone Games in 2009, and the FIBA Asian Cup in 2017, sport has
become a symbol of Lebanon’s post-war recovery and for rebuilding the coun-
try. Rebuilding the Sports City Stadium in Beirut, destroyed by Israeli bombs
during the civil war, was of major symbolic importance in that it showcased
Lebanon’s economic and political achievements in post-war reconstruction.
Winning the bid for the AFC Asian Cup 2000 against Asian powerhouse
China was a remarkable success for Lebanon. Members from foreign govern-
ments and presidents from sports governing bodies such as the IOC and FIFA
visited Lebanon for the events, making these an effective soft power tool for
the small country. Lebanon proved that it is capable of organizing major
events and, as one member of the government framed it, is ‘back on the world
map.’ The events gave Lebanon regional (Pan-Arab Games), continental (AFC
Asian Cup, FIBA Asian Cup), and partly global (Francophone Games, AFC
Asian Cup) exposure. Members of the Lebanese government used the opening
ceremonies as an opportunity to portray to the world that the Mediterranean
nation-state is a diverse, democratic, and tolerant country.
However, some articles published in the domestic and international press
prior to and during the events were less favorable toward the host country.
Negative media coverage began prior to the events, with many reports express-
ing concerns that the facilities would not be ready in time. During the tourna-
ments, many articles in the media pointed out the low number of spectators
attending the matches, even comparing the stadiums to cemeteries. Poorly
attended events are attributed not only to the absence of many international
stars competing, but also to the lack of sporting success of local athletes that
prevented a temporary ‘feel-good factor’ and sense of national pride in a
divided country.
While the idea behind the Pan-Arab Games is to make a statement for Arab
unity, banning Iraq from participation and spectator violence in the football
final between Jordan and Syria in 1997 showcased tensions within the Arab
world that became even worse in the two decades following the event. The
main failure of the 1997 Pan-Arab Games, the 2000 AFC Asian Cup, and the

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2009 Francophone Games is the absence of a legacy management program

that deals with the post-event use of the facilities. While the venue of the 2017
FIBA Asian Cup will be utilized by a local basketball team, the International
Olympic Stadium in Tripoli is a ‘white elephant’ that has hardly been used
since the AFC Asian Cup in 2000. Maintenance budgets have become tools
for stealing money while the facilities are dirty and rusty, reflecting the serious
problem of corruption in Lebanon.
Overall, there is a mixed picture when assessing Lebanon’s experiences of
hosting mega-sporting events, with some short-term image gains but few indi-
cations of long-term benefits for the country. During FIBA Asia 2017,
Lebanon’s President Aoun said ‘that his country is willing to host any regional
or international sports tournaments’,82 but I believe that Lebanon should take
a more critical stand and give priority to youth and grassroots sports programs
before hosting other mega-sporting events. If Lebanon does host other mega-
sporting events, it should consider co-hosting them with other countries to
limit the risks.
There are some broader conclusions from the case study that also apply to
other host countries of ‘Tier 2’ and ‘Tier 3’ mega-sporting events, particularly
those that are small and underdeveloped like Lebanon. Governments from
around the world tend to focus on the potential gains and to ignore the risks
of hosting mega-sporting events. In nondemocratic countries, there is typically
no critical discourse around the bidding processes. While hosting ‘Tier 2’ and
‘Tier 3’ mega-sporting events may have some short-term promotional benefits
for the country, the case of Lebanon shows the difficulties in generating enthu-
siasm beyond the competitions, the lack of strategies for the post-event use of
facilities, and the financial burden on the government for building and main-
taining stadiums and sports halls. In addition, if a country is poorly rated in
corruption indices, there is a good chance that financing for mega-sporting
events will be pilfered.
One could argue that small, developing countries, such as Lebanon, which
struggle to provide their populations with basic needs, should not host mega-
sporting events. However, a proposed alternative is co-hosting future events
with other countries. Just eleven days after FIBA Asia 2017 in Lebanon con-
cluded, the continental championship in European basketball started and set
an excellent example for the future of ‘Tier 2’ and ‘Tier 3’ mega-sporting
events. EuroBasket 2017 was hosted by four countries: Finland, Israel,
Romania, and Turkey. Two years earlier, EuroBasket 2015 was the first
European basketball championship that was hosted by more than one coun-

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try: matches took place in Croatia, France, Germany, and Latvia. While
Lebanon hosted the AFC Asian Cup in 2000 by itself, the continental foot-
ball championship in Europe, the UEFA European Championship, was co-
hosted by Austria and Switzerland in 2008—countries with similar
populations to Lebanon, and by Poland and Ukraine in 2012. These examples
demonstrate that multinational hosting is gaining popularity. Co-hosting may
increase local community acceptance, an important feat given the growing
skepticism toward hosting large-scale sporting events, as the results of referen-
dums on hosting mega-sporting events as well as protests in many countries
demonstrate. Apart from reducing costs and avoiding ‘white elephants’, joint
bids also enhance cooperation between countries, a positive effect particularly
for troubled regions such as the Middle East.

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 10

THE BUSINESS OF SPORTS IN THE

GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL MEMBER STATES

Simon Chadwick

Introduction

Over the last decade, there has been a dramatic shift eastwards (towards Asia) in
sport’s global powerbase. This is evident across Asia, for example, in the growing
number of major mega-events being hosted by Asian countries, the proliferation
of investors located there, and the number of commercial deals being instigated
and funded by Asian corporations and governments. As such, it is becoming
increasingly apparent that the twenty-first century will be characterized by the
predominance of Asia’s influence on international and global sport.
Although several countries in East and Central Asia have made a strategic
commitment to building sustainable sport industries, China and Kazakhstan
being two such countries, it is within the Middle East that much of the recent
activity has originated. More specifically, countries of the Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) have been a driving force in promoting the economic, indus-
trial, and commercial development of sport—regionally, internationally, and
globally. Indeed, there is ample evidence of this, ranging from the acquisition of

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sports assets such as football clubs (for example, English Premier League club
Manchester City by Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan) and
the staging of sports mega-events (such as Bahrain and Abu Dhabi’s staging of
the Formula 1 Grand Prix), through to the creation of extensive sponsorship
portfolios (like Emirates Airlines’ multiple deals with top European football
clubs such as Real Madrid and AC Milan) and government-level commitments
being made to the industrial development of sport (for instance, via Qatar’s
2030 National Vision and the country’s accompanying sports strategy).
The business of sport has therefore become important for individual GCC
countries, for the GCC collectively, and for the world of sport in general. It is
contributing to national planning, especially as GCC countries look towards
diversifying their economies beyond a dependence upon oil and gas. Yet the
role of sport is extending beyond this to embrace goals such as job creation,
establishing competitive advantage, enhancing national image, improving
international relations, fostering social cohesion, and promoting health and
active lifestyles.
Such is the breadth, pace, and intensity of growth and change in GCC
sport that a closer examination of its industrial and business features is there-
fore warranted. This chapter begins with a brief examination of the GCC,
specifically its economic profile, and then goes on to analyze the sport indus-
try within the GCC. Initially, several common features of the industry are
examined: economy and industry; soft power and diplomacy; nation brand-
ing and national identity; health and well-being; and sociocultural factors.
The chapter then moves on to provide a statistical profile of sport in the
region, highlighting a range of data focused on each GCC country’s interest
in sport, participation in sport, commercial revenues, and economic contribu-
tion of sport. Thereafter, key issues pertaining to sport in the region are
explored. Specifically, these are: consumption; risk and security; regional ten-
sions; resource management; economic and state pressures; and general obser-
vations, which broadly includes reference to specific GCC sports, such as
camel racing. The final section of the chapter draws conclusions in the context
of the above, the essence of which is that although the business of sport across
the GCC is growing, it remains relatively small in global terms and faces a
number of challenges to its continuing development.

Sport and the GCC

The GCC is a regional political and economic alliance consisting of six mem-
bers: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab

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Emirates. Four of the countries (Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United
Arab Emirates) have formulated industrial visions (typically up to 2030), and
created accompanying strategies to realize these visions. These national visions
specifically address the overdependence of each country on oil and/or gas and,
therefore, reflect a view of what the countries want their post-oil futures to
look like. At the same time, there is a pervading sense of the need to produc-
tively utilize the revenues currently being derived from mineral resource
deposits. While the likes of Abu Dhabi have targeted tourism as a major pillar
of its strategy for moving the country towards its industrial vision, Qatar and
Saudi Arabia specifically reference the significance of sport.
In 2016, Saudi Arabia announced its vision for sport, acknowledging that
opportunities for playing sports in the country have historically been limited,
but that sport is an important part of an active, healthy lifestyle among its
population. Indeed, the vision statement explains that the country aims to
foster ‘widespread and regular participation in sports and athletic activities,
working in partnership with the private sector to establish additional dedi-
cated facilities and programmes … we aspire to excel in sports and be among
the leaders in selected sports regionally and globally.’1 As part of this process,
the following are identified as being particularly important:
• Grassroots development of sports and sporting infrastructure
• Development of women’s sport
• Privatization and promotion of football and other sports clubs
• Commercializing trademarks and logos
By comparison, the nature and scale of Qatar’s vision for sport appears to
be significantly more ambitious than other GCC countries, given its nature
and scale, which extends across sports and outside the country’s borders.
Qatar’s sport sector strategy generally highlights the following as being impor-
tant goals:
• Greater community participation in sports and physical activity
• Improved and integrated planning for community and elite sports facilities
• Increased and improved sports talent development, management, and per-
formance.2
Yet a more broadly encompassing view appears to characterize the sport
industry in Asia, particularly in the GCC. Not least is the way in which the
model of sport appears to be predominantly state-led, but with active support
for the development of an accompanying commercial sector. Indeed, the

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visions for sport adopted by Qatar and Saudi Arabia are entirely consistent
with such a model. However, this emergent Asian model does not conceive of
sport simply as a form of physical or social activity. Rather, sport is advocated
as a means of driving activity and affecting cognitive and behavioral change in
various ways, specifically by promoting economy and industry; soft power and
diplomacy; nation branding and national identity; health and well-being; and
sociocultural factors.

Economy and Industry

Sport is increasingly viewed as a source of employment, tax contributions, and

export earnings, as well as a source of competitive advantage and differentia-
tion.3 As such, a growing number of Asian governments have been taking a
strongly interventionist approach to the development of their sport industries.
This stands in stark contrast to the role of the state in sport elsewhere in the
world. The United States does not even have a sports ministry, while in coun-
tries such as Great Britain and Germany a liberal approach to sport has been
adopted in which government fulfills more of an oversight role in the develop-
ment of their respective sports industries.
However, across the GCC the position is significantly different, with gov-
ernments strategically and proactively engaging in both the creation of indus-
trial infrastructure and the pursuit of revenue-generating investment
opportunities. In the case of Qatar, the country has vigorously pursued a
strategy of sports mega-event bidding that has resulted in it hosting football’s
World Cup in 2022, the International Association of Athletics Federations
(IAAF) World Championships in 2019, cycling’s world road race champion-
ship in 2016, and the men’s handball world championship in 2015. This has
already had an economic impact in Qatar, for example in the way it has led to
the creation of infrastructure.4 In addition, the country has been investing in
organizations that have been designed to build distinctive national compe-
tences. Some examples of this include the International Centre for Sports
Security, which specializes in providing sport safety, security, and integrity
services; and Aspetar, a specialist orthopaedic and sports medicine facility.
Qatar and its business leaders have also invested heavily in overseas sports
properties, with the intention of generating new revenue flows, but also with
a view to building the country’s profile and presence across the world of sport.
One of the most notable organizations in this sphere has been Qatar Sports
Investments (QSI). Among its portfolio of assets are French Ligue 1 football

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club Paris Saint-Germain; Burrda Sport apparel company; and the Doha Golf
and Spa Resort.
It should also be noted that the economic development of sport in the
GCC is consistent with a characterization of its members as rentier econo-
mies. This entails countries—in the context of sport, most notably including
Qatar and Abu Dhabi—generating rents externally by manipulating global
political and/or economic environments.5 As Reiche notes,6 in addition to
economic benefits, this may have further advantages in terms of fostering soft
power, improved national security, industrial diversification, and the develop-
ment of a healthy society.

Soft Power and Diplomacy

There has been a growing recognition that sport can make a significant con-
tribution to the pursuit of soft power and diplomatic goals.7 Indeed, it is
acknowledged that some countries within the GCC have become hugely
adept at utilizing sport for these purposes.8 Nye’s original work on soft power
accentuates the role of appeal and attraction as a means through which to
influence the perceptions and behaviors of others.9 Committing to the devel-
opment of sport plays into such a narrative in the way that it enables countries
to make a statement about the values they hold, their desire to engage with
other nations, and their capacity to successfully plan and deliver events.
Furthermore, sport can be a means through which to access important
resources or to gain preferential access to investment opportunities.10
A convergence of sport, commerce, and soft power in the GCC can be
clearly seen in sponsorship strategies of the region’s major airlines. The airlines
are state-owned, relatively young, and have had to establish market presence
and build market share at a time when carriers from elsewhere in the world,
particularly in Europe, have been privatized. Sports sponsorship has therefore
been a way for Emirates Airlines (EA), Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways, and
Gulf Air to generate consumer awareness of their services, influence their
brand preferences, and affect consumption choices. In many ways, this has
been a classic example of soft-power execution, creating favorable perceptions
of the nations, their companies, and the activities in which they engage, not
least through sport.
EA particularly stands out, especially as it was only established in 1985. Yet
within thirty years it has become one of the world’s biggest carriers. There are
several reasons for this, not least the deliberate positioning of Dubai as an

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international transit hub. However, the prominent role that its portfolio of
sponsorships has played in the airline’s development is significant. In key ter-
ritories, EA has signed high-profile deals with some of the world’s leading
football clubs. The organization’s deal with the English Premier League’s
Arsenal was initially notable for its duration (ten years) and because it com-
bined shirt sponsorship and stadium naming rights deals. Thereafter, shirt
sponsorship deals—with Spain’s Real Madrid, Italy’s AC Milan, France’s Paris
Saint-Germain, and Germany’s Hamburger SV—has meant that EA has had
a long-standing presence in the top five European leagues. Reinforcing its
presence even further, the airline is also involved in tennis, horse racing,
cricket, golf, rugby, and motorsport sponsorships.

Nation Branding

To an extent, issues of identity and branding are related to soft power and
diplomacy, although they are nevertheless sufficiently distinct to warrant fur-
ther discussion.11 This body of work indicates that nation brands are multifac-
eted, involving the use of visual symbols, slogans, or straplines as the means of
establishing and maintaining market position, thereby helping to build com-
petitive advantage. In so doing, the brand contributes to the creation and
projection of a national identity.12 The contribution that sport can play in
enabling and promoting national brands and identities has therefore been
widely accepted, both globally and specifically within the GCC.13
Branding plays a particularly important role in the GCC; perhaps except-
ing Saudi Arabia, the international profile and stature of the GCC’s member
nations has been relatively weak. In part this has been due to their physical size
and geographic location. It has also probably been attributable to their twen-
tieth-century histories; for instance, the likes of UAE and Qatar were either
colonized or under the protection of the British and, so, are relatively new—
and newly independent—nations that have been seeking to establish a post-
colonial image and identity. Furthermore, in seeking a post-carbon fuel legacy,
sport provides an opportunity for GCC nations to become known as some-
thing other than oil and gas producers.
Across the GCC, sport has therefore become an important focus for wider
industrial developments as well as being an important part of identity-creating
and brand-building activities. The latter has taken place at two levels: sport as
a feature of GCC countries’ brands, and the GCC as a sport destination. As
Nielsen has identified,14 sport has become a core constituent in the branding

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activities of the GCC. It is now a feature of the region’s identity, denoting the
likes of Abu Dhabi and Qatar as being major sources of outward investment
funding into sports properties. For instance, the Bahraini royal family’s
Mumtalakat investment company owns 50 percent of McLaren Group. This
is consistent with Bahrain’s commitment to staging a Formula 1 (F1) Grand
Prix, as well as its sponsorship of the sport via its national airline Gulf Air
(GA). In turn, GA actively positions and brands itself as a motorsport airline,
its planes often carrying official F1 livery.
Abu Dhabi is also an F1 race host, additionally being home to the Ferrari
World theme park, while Qatar retains a desire to host an F1 Grand Prix.
Contractual difficulties may preclude this happening, though Qatar neverthe-
less alternatively plays host to an international motor rally and a motorcycling
grand prix. The GCC has thus rapidly become a sporting event destination, a
brand identity that its various nations have deliberately sought to build.
Alongside this, the GCC countries are now seeking to establish the region as
a sport tourism destination, a goal that forms the basis of, for example, the
Qatar Tourism Authority’s strategy.15

Health and Well-Being

The economic and industrial effects of sport extend beyond the generation of
direct financial flows; as such, sport is not simply an investment opportunity.
Sport as a form of physical activity that should be promoted among populations
has long been accepted, especially for the improvements in personal and public
lifestyles and health it can bring.16 These issues are particularly concerning for
GCC countries, as cardiovascular disease and diabetes are both serious problems
facing the region.17 Such illnesses often reflect sedentary lifestyles and poor diet,
hence a major commitment to promoting physical activity is one way of mitigat-
ing and preventing their effects. This has the additional benefit of offsetting
healthcare costs as a fitter population is less likely to use a country’s medical
system.18 Healthier populations are also likely to be more productive.19
Similarly, sport can have an impact on psychological well-being,20 another
health matter that is somewhat problematic in some GCC countries.21 Linked
to this, physical activity, as well as sporting success, is increasingly being
acknowledged as an important source of happiness.22 Happiness is thought to
deliver a range of benefits, including an improved sense of well-being and
self-esteem and a stronger sense of communal and national identity.23 In light
of the above observations regarding national identity, the feel-good factor

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induced by various forms of sport is therefore one that some GCC members
have been very keen to achieve.
One of only five countries in the world—the others being India, Iran, Japan,
and Malaysia—and the only one from the GCC, Qatar hosts an annual
national sports day each February. The public holiday aims ‘to educate people
on the importance of physical activity and help develop and promote a culture
of healthy living in the Qatari society,’ and seeks to ‘develop a physically and
psychologically active and healthy society where individuals can build their
capabilities and interact with their social environment.’24 What is particularly
notable about this day of sport is that it is consistent with Qatar’s 2030
National Vision, specifically its human development pillar.

Statistical Profile of the GCC Sport Industry

Although it is increasingly well established that sport can be a major driver of

economic and commercial activity, the exact size of the global sport industry
remains unclear. In one respect, this may be because of definitional issues
regarding what constitutes the sport industry. While some measures of indus-
try size focus specifically on activities relating to, dependent upon, or gener-
ated by competitive sports, other measures incorporate various aspects of the
health and fitness industries. As such, estimates of global industry size vary
greatly; at the top end, one study has identified that the industry may be
worth $1.5 trillion.25 Another estimate values the global sports industry at
$750 million;26 and another puts the figure at around $145 million.27
Given issues pertaining to the accurate measurement of industry size, it is
therefore unsurprising that measures of sport industry size in the Middle East
and North Africa (MENA) and the GCC are either nonexistent or methodo-
logically questionable. Furthermore, in previous studies of the global sport
industry, the GCC and MENA regions have often been embedded within
regional classifications adopted by the research organization’s business units.
Hence, in a 2011 study of the global sports market,28 a measure for Europe,
the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) identified that sport in the region would
be worth $43 billion by 2015, accounting for 35 percent of a total market
worth of $145 billion. A later estimate of global sport economy size indicated
that its annual value could be worth as much as $650 billion.29 However, once
more EMEA was used as the area of measurement; the study established that
spending in the sport economy was annually increasing by three times more
than other overall expenditure across the region.

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In the first study of its kind, the Josoor Institute undertook research aimed
at identifying the specific nature and scale of the sport industry in the Middle
East.30 This revealed that sport in the GCC is likely to be worth around $6.5
billion, employing around 68,500 people; further details of which are shown
in Table 1.

Table 1: Sport industry size and employment in the GCC

Country Sport industry size (US $) Employment

Bahrain 162 million 1,000

Kuwait 524 million 1,500
Oman 302 million N.A.
Qatar 1.3 billion 6,000
Saudi Arabia 2.5 billion 50,000
United Arab Emirates 1.7 billion 10,000

Total 6.5 billion 68,500

The Josoor research clearly indicates that the sport industry is both a major
source of economic activity in the GCC and a significant provider of employ-
ment. However, in global terms, the GCC’s sport industry remains rather
small, probably accounting for less than 5 percent of total global industry size.
Furthermore, there are considerable variations in the industry across GCC
countries; the industry in Saudi Arabia is clearly mature and apparently well-
established, whereas in Bahrain and Oman there would appear to be invest-
ment and development potential. In summary, notwithstanding the sums of
money now being spent on sport by the likes of the United Arab Emirates and
Qatar, the region remains some way short of being a major global sport indus-
try player.

Key Issues Facing Sport in the GCC

The importance of sport to the economic activities of GCC countries is

undoubted. After nearly two decades of investment in sport, the region is
increasingly viewed across the world as an important player in the global sport
industry. Nevertheless, there are several issues that warrant further considera-
tion, both for their implications domestically within individual GCC coun-
tries and for their impact upon other countries. While it is acknowledged that

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each GCC country may encounter specific local issues, in general, the main
issues can be summarized thus: consumption; risk and security; regional ten-
sions; resource management; economic and state pressures; and general obser-
vations. Each of these issues is now considered in detail.

Consumption

The GCC’s appetite for sport is undoubted, the national visions of respective
countries evidencing a strong predisposition towards consuming it. As partici-
pants, the region’s population appears to be especially keen football players and
swimmers. The former is consistent with the popularity of football in many
countries around the world, while the latter possibly reflects the nature of local
climatic conditions that are generally conducive to outdoor swimming.
Participant needs have created interesting commercial opportunities, not least
in terms of the demand for sportswear and equipment. One company that has
taken advantage of this is Burrda, a Qatar-based sports clothing company.
Football is avidly followed in each country of the GCC by both spectators
and fans. In a study by Deloitte conducted in the GCC region,31 73 percent
of fans surveyed indicated that football was very important to them, while
89 percent said they watched football whenever they could. However,
although the Deloitte study focused specifically on football, some of the
observations made in its report provide telling insights into the general con-
sumption of sport across the region. In many respects, these pose some impor-
tant issues for the GCC’s sport industry and those who manage organizations
within it.
GCC fans would appear to have split loyalties when they consume sport,
which is the source of some concern in the context of fan engagement. People
often lead something of a polarized existence, as they will simultaneously be
fans of both a local and an international team or athlete. This is the source of
troubling fan-engagement issues across the GCC as fans will often flock to
watch games involving the likes of Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, but will
refrain from watching local or regional teams. Indeed, although clubs such as
Saudi Arabia’s Al Ahli can attract attendances of 60,000 men or more, average
attendance across the country’s professional league is around 7,000 men, and
may sometimes even be as low as 2,000. As a result, getting people into sports
venues can often be a major challenge in the GCC, with some participants in
the research suggesting that events should even pay people as an inducement
for them to attend a game.

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Deloitte identifies the importance of television and social media as one rea-
son for the weak attendance at games. Indeed, the organization has established
that satellite and digital television subscriptions constitute the largest category
of expenditure among football fans. Alongside this, the company’s research has
also shown that GCC sports fans are significant consumers of over-the-top
content; that is, the likes of visual materials uploaded onto the internet and
accessed via platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and apps. In entrepreneurial
terms, this suggests some interesting industrial and investment opportunities
for sport organizations in the region, although it also implies that fan engage-
ment across the GCC will continue to be a major challenge. The difficulty in
getting people into stadiums and sports venues is therefore acknowledged as an
impediment to the growth of sport in the GCC, especially when combined
with some of the climatic difficulties associated with summer months that are
not conducive to staging outdoor sports competitions.32
Engagement and attendance issues pose other problems too, notably their
effects on the match-day experience. In the Deloitte research, atmosphere at
games was specifically identified as an issue across the GCC, which is in turn
believed to undermine consumer perceptions of product quality. Exacerbating
this problem, there also appear to be concerns about the standard of sports
venues across the region. In countries where disposable incomes can be among
the highest in the world, matched by consequent consumer expectations
about quality, this is a serious matter that must be addressed by the region’s
sport industry.

Risk and Security

Qatar’s formation of the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS), and
its intention to promote the integrity and security of sport, may have reflected
a perceived need to address some of global sport’s most pressing problems.
Furthermore, it could be viewed as a shrewd strategy intended to create com-
petitive advantage for Qatar in a field where a range of existing sports organi-
zations have struggled to address some profound challenges such as match
fixing and money laundering. Equally, the ICSS may reflect the hugely conten-
tious World Cup bidding process in 2010, when Qatar won the right to host
the 2022 tournament, and could even be viewed as a positive legacy of what
remains, for some people, a controversial hosting decision. Matters of risk and
security nevertheless have a special pertinence in the GCC, strategically and
in operational terms.

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There are regional instabilities within the GCC and proximate to it that
provide an important backdrop against which the regional and global sport
industries must operate. Notably, this pertains to terrorist threats and the
impact that specific organizations may have on the region. Particularly, ISIS
has claimed on several occasions that it will seek to disrupt, for example, the
2022 World Cup in Qatar.33 Whether such a threat ultimately manifests itself
will remain a moot point for the time being; however, the perceived threat is
such that terrorism will continue to impact upon the staging of events in the
GCC, as well as the region’s broader investment portfolio. As terrorist inci-
dents in Paris and Manchester have demonstrated in recent years, sports and
entertainment venues constitute a target for violent attack. This means that
the likes of football matches, motor races, and sports mega-events held in the
region will all require robust risk assessment, security, and contingency plan-
ning measures in place to mitigate whatever threat malicious individuals
might pose.
Security should not, however, be conceived of purely in terms of threat to
life or to physical infrastructure. A major issue facing the region over the last
decade has been the threat of sea piracy, a problem that is now being jointly
addressed across the GCC.34 Piracy nevertheless remains an issue and consti-
tutes a legitimate threat to sport in several ways. The construction of venues,
particularly in countries like Bahrain and Qatar, relies upon the import of
concrete and steel. This makes such countries especially susceptible to piracy,
exposing them to the possibility of disruption to event planning, organization,
and delivery.
There are also issues of natural resource security, most significantly water
security. This is commonly identified as a major challenge facing the region,
and is something that is exacerbated by the staging of sports events.35 One
estimate indicates that upwards of one million people will enter Qatar during
the 2022 World Cup, the implications of which should be considered in the
context of the normal, ‘static’ population of 2.7 million. In such circum-
stances, the importance of water is evident in its provision for drinking pur-
poses but also for sanitation and for efficiently managing sports venues; for
example, watering pitches. A further consideration for sport is that a principle
source of water in the region is through desalination, which is polluting and
can threaten environmental security. Managing this threat is a particularly
important challenge for sport, as many of the GCC countries that have
adopted national visions have made a commitment to protecting the natural
environment. Alongside water, given that GCC nations buy significant

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amounts of food from overseas, food security is also a challenge about which
sports organizers must remain vigilant.
Given the levels of investment being made in sport by the likes of Dubai
and Abu Dhabi, economic security is an important issue too. At its most
fundamental, this use of sport as a means through which to diversify the
economies of carbon revenue dependency dictates that their sports invest-
ments must ultimately yield a tangible financial return. While threats to this
form of security could come from, for example, a terrorist attack, poor invest-
ment decision-making, market turbulence, and geopolitical instability are
other potential sources of threat.

Regional Tensions

When Bahrain first reached an agreement to stage an F1 Grand Prix from

2004 onwards, it insisted upon inserting a contractual clause that would pro-
hibit any more than one other country in the Gulf region hosting a race.36 In
2009, Abu Dhabi subsequently became the second GCC country to host an
F1 event, which effectively precluded the likes of Qatar and Saudi Arabia ever
hosting a race. This proved to be the source of some consternation, particularly
for the Qataris. Indeed, in 2015, rumors surfaced that Qatar was seeking to
buy Formula One outright, with a view to staging a race through the streets of
Doha.37 When, in 2017, F1’s ownership passed into the hands of the American
corporation Liberty Media, Qatar’s route into the sport presumably ended—
at least for the time being.
Even so, the protective nature of Bahrain’s deal with F1 aptly illustrates the
somewhat fractious nature of sport in the GCC, something that reflects the
nature of wider relations between member nations. Following a 2014 diplo-
matic confrontation between Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, it was perhaps
no surprise that during the summer of 2017 a more serious and escalating
problem emerged in which Qatar was effectively isolated from its GCC neigh-
bors. Notwithstanding the reasons for this and the subsequent outcomes of
what became an escalating dispute, the spat had major consequences for sport
in the region.
In one incident, Saudi Arabian football club Al Ahli instantly terminated its
contract with shirt sponsor Qatar Airways. In a related but separate develop-
ment, the Asian Football Confederation decided to move a Champions League
game between Al Ahli and Iran’s Persepolis from Doha to a neutral venue, fear-
ing the implications of staging such a game in either country. At the same time,
in the UAE, people and organizations making positive references to Qatar were

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threatened with imprisonment, a move that led sports stores to cover sponsor
logos on sports shirts displayed in the windows of retail outlets.38
Sport in the GCC has therefore become an instrument of power, a focal
point for asserting regional power, and a pawn in the diplomatic battles that
periodically grip the region. There has long been resentment among some
nations in the region towards Qatar’s Al Jazeera, which, among other such
measures, resulted in the channel and other Qatari media outlets being
blocked amid the 2017 diplomatic crisis.39 The channel has long been accused
of propagating a distinctly Qatari view of the world, effectively underpinning
the soft-power influence and national branding opportunities that broadcast-
ing provides. However, BeIn Sport, Al Jazeera’s sports broadcasting division,
has also been criticized by some GCC countries for its aggressive growth
strategy, which has seen the company successfully outbid many of its rivals,
including Abu Dhabi’s Yas Sports and Dubai Sports.
Regional tensions pose a real and ongoing threat to the GCC’s sport indus-
try. At the very least the region’s problems inflict reputational damage, an
observation brought forth by calls from across the world to move the 2022
World Cup away from the region. But it also causes tangible damage to eco-
nomic activity within and outside the region. In one case, at games in France
involving Qatari-owned Paris Saint-Germain, rival fans have often held up
banners referencing the country’s alleged links to terrorism.40 In another case,
flights into and out of Doha have been severely disrupted by transport bans
since 2017. While this may have appeared petty to some, such moves during
major sporting events in the region (not least the 2022 World Cup) would
have implications for their successful staging, as well as subsequent bids to
host other events.

Resource Management

In general terms, resources are typically conceived of as including land, labor,

and entrepreneurship. In terms of land, the biggest challenges for sport in the
region would seem to be in developing facilities in harsh climatic conditions.
Still, there have already been several key developments in sports facilities,
including the creation of motor-racing circuits on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, at
Sakhir in Bahrain, and at Lusail in Qatar. However, the construction of such
venues has raised several issues, to which there have already been some refer-
ences in this chapter. Capacity utilization, both during and after an event,
remains an issue that links closely to fan engagement, and also to the way in
which venues are financed, designed, built, and operated. Indeed, the general

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relevance of creating mixed-use, accessible sports infrastructure would seem

to be an important consideration for sport in the GCC.
Climatic conditions have not thus far been examined in detail in this chap-
ter. It is important to reference climate as a feature of the sports operating
environment, particularly as summertime in the GCC represents a major
constraint on the scheduling and staging of sporting events. Indeed, Qatar’s
successful bid to host the 2022 football World Cup has seen it moved from its
usual June slot in the international football calendar to December, when the
country’s climate is more temperate. This move has antagonized some of foot-
ball’s most influential stakeholders, notably the European football leagues,
thereby somewhat diminishing the brand-building effects that Qatar was seek-
ing to achieve through its staging of the event. In addition, the eventual switch
to December has challenged existing governance and organizational structures
across international football which, again, has apparently caused some resent-
ment.41 The effects of local climate must therefore be an important considera-
tion in the formulation and execution of sports strategies in the region.
Climate and heat are two of the factors that have also drawn the further
attention of critics, who observe how they have contributed to difficult work-
ing conditions for people employed in the region. In turn, this is bound into
a much bigger issue pertaining to the acquisition and management of immi-
grant labor.42 While the 2022 World Cup has served as a rallying point for
organizations such as Amnesty International and the International Labour
Organisation to question the nature of worker rights, and the kafala labor
system in general has been put in the spotlight following the construction of
sporting infrastructure across the GCC.43 Essentially, kafala requires migrants
to have an in-country sponsor that becomes responsible for workers’ visa and
legal status once they enter the country. Observers stress that this creates
opportunities for labor exploitation; the confiscation of passports, and the
provision of poor living and working conditions often being the most obvious
problems with the system.44
The importance of labor as a resource is accentuated in the industrial
visions of GCC countries, some of which have identified human capital devel-
opment as one of the intended outcomes of a commitment to investing in
sport. Through its ‘Challenge 22’ initiative,45 Qatar has been seeking to iden-
tify and fund talented, young entrepreneurs who can create new businesses
that will contribute to building a sustainable sport industry in the country,
both pre- and post-2022. Through other initiatives, such as the Josoor
Institute, Qatar is also seeking to ensure that one legacy of hosting the coun-

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try’s World Cup is the education and training of sports industry professionals.
This is consistent not only with Doha’s vision of human capital development,
but also of a broader regional perspective—that sport is a means through
which countries can enhance their national labor competences.
It has not been within the scope of this chapter to specifically consider
issues of on-field sporting performance among the GCC’s athletes. However,
the acquisition and retention of elite professional sportspeople does raise a
further labor issue. Athlete harvesting and naturalization have become com-
mon in some GCC countries, practices that have resulted in widespread criti-
cism in the international media. Together, harvesting and naturalization
effectively entail the identification, recruitment, and reward of athletes whose
places of birth and nationalities may be different to what they ultimately
become when they agree to represent one of the GCC nations. African coun-
tries are often the source of such labor, although European and South
American nations have sometimes been a source too. Typically, highly skilled
sportspeople in these countries are targeted and offered a passport and highly
lucrative remuneration packages in return for changing their national alle-
giances. The Qatar national handball team, which reached the sport’s world
championship final in 2015, is an example of this; the team attracted a con-
siderable amount of negative publicity in light of this.46
Organizations such as the Fédération Internationale de Football
Association (FIFA) have commented that harvesting and naturalization are
not within the spirit of their rules,47 although other federations including
some in athletics and handball have adopted a rather more lax stance on them.
This suggests there may eventually be attempts in the future to more closely
scrutinize or even ban these practices. Until such time as that happens, the
pursuit of elite-level success in sport will result in a continuation of harvesting
and naturalization. This is likely to pose a range of ongoing issues, including
upholding national identity and reputational damage in the view of nations
that perceive the practices to be unfair, illegal, or immoral.

Economic and State Pressures

The GCC region in general is often significantly exposed to price movements

in carbon fuel markets. The source of wealth that has enabled the likes of
Qatar and the UAE to engage in well-resourced and proactive sport industry
strategies has, at the same time, become something of a constraint. In recent
years, an oversupply of oil has led to significant falls in its price resulting in a
fiscally challenging period for the GCC nations. Members have responded by

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instigating various measures that have brought about relative austerity which,
in turn, has impacted upon sport. The notable effect of these measures has
been evident in Qatar, which is thought to have reduced its World Cup
budget by between 40 and 50 percent in 2017.48 At the same time, some
events, including the Tour of Qatar professional cycling race, were cancelled,
with organizers citing financial pressures as the cause of this move.
One of the ways in which GCC countries have been attempting to offset
their vulnerability to fluctuations in carbon fuel prices has been to invest their
wealth in revenue-generating assets overseas, several examples of which have
already been mentioned. However, such investments have not been immune
from the countries’ exposure to the vagaries of the oil markets. Indeed, in a
recent study of overseas football acquisitions between 2014 and 2017,49 only
Qatar appeared in the global top-20 (in twelfth place), with no other GCC
countries on the list. Yet with the added pressure of the 2017 diplomatic
stand-off also likely to have affected the economic welfare of both the region
and sport, the importance of such overseas sporting investments seems to have
become even more important.
While private capital has begun to emerge as a source of funding for activi-
ties in the sport industry, the paternalistic nature of the economic models
employed across the GCC continues to dominate. Notwithstanding the
broader relative merits and deficiencies of the state’s role in sport, the GCC’s
public-sector dominance of the field has created some significant economic
pressures that countries have needed to address. For instance, in Saudi Arabia,
the Council of Economic and Development Affairs announced in 2016 that
it would privatize its state-owned professional football clubs.50 The motivation
for such a move was the desire to release clubs from bureaucratic state control,
thereby creating opportunities to secure private-sector revenues from sources
such as new stadium developments and the more effective sale of media rights.
In somewhat similar moves, the Dubai government recently decreed the
merger of three clubs—Shabab, Al Ahli, and Dubai Club—into one entity:
Shabab Al Ahli Dubai Club. According to Dubai’s government, the main
motive underpinning the merger is a desire to build a football team capable of
competing with rivals at continental and global levels. Having just won a
2016/17 domestic league and cup double, Qatar’s Lekhwiya Club rapidly
disappeared as it merged with league rival El Jaish to become a new club, Al
Duhail. It has been predicted that the move will create ‘a new superpower in
Qatari football that has the potential to compete for the AFC Champions
League and maybe one day bring Asia’s most valuable club trophy to Qatar.’51
The same thing happened early in 2017 in Sharjah, where a resolution merging

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Al Shaab Club and Al Sharjah Club into a single entity—Sharjah Cultural

Club—was issued.52

Other Sports

Throughout this chapter, the discussion about sport in the GCC has essentially
been framed largely in terms of state intervention, bidding for mega-events, and
a focus on what are effectively global sports, such as football and motorsport. It
is nevertheless important to acknowledge that several sports are deeply rooted
in the region, while others reflect cultural heritage in the GCC’s member
nations, with equine sports perhaps being the most notable among these.
Equine sports in the region can have a strongly domestic focus, but are also
a point of engagement with other parts of the world. In the UAE, desert
endurance races of up to 150 miles attract the entry of some 2,000 active
endurance horses drawn from an Emirates Equestrian Federation register of
almost ninety stables.53 The UAE also has extensive interests in horseracing
elsewhere; Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum is a major investor in
Britain’s horseracing sector, where he owns the Darley breeding and
Godolphin racing operations. Maktoum also owns breeding and training
operations in Ireland, France, Australia, the United States, and Japan. Qatar
has also been investing heavily in the sport, via investment and sponsorship
deals with British courses at Ascot and Goodwood.
Figures pertaining to interest and participation in sport presented above
provide little indication that sports in the region, other than those listed, are
popular. However, falconry, camel racing, and horse racing are sports deeply
embedded in the culture and traditions of GCC countries. Among some sec-
tions of the community, especially those more affluent members of society as
well as those keen to preserve history, there remains a consequent willingness
to continue following and spending in these sports. However, as Deloitte
noted, the economic impact in terms of jobs created and income generated is
limited.54 Outward investments into the overseas equine sector are neverthe-
less believed to have a strong impact, albeit in places such as Great Britain. It
is nevertheless acknowledged that such investments serve as the basis for
nation branding, destination-marketing, and tourism generation.55

Conclusions

Over the last two decades, sport in the GCC has grown and matured to such
an extent that it is now an important focal point for domestic, international,

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and global sports industry activity. Inside the region, sport forms the basis for
government strategy, economic and industrial development, sociocultural
aspiration, and political influence. Outside the region, the GCC has become
a source of investment funds and commercial revenues, such as from sponsor-
ship, as and is being widely recognized as a group of countries committed to
the development of sport. As such, the GCC has rapidly become embedded
within regional, international, and global sport networks. A key feature of the
GCC’s sport industry is the role played by the state. Whereas governments
elsewhere in the world, notably in Western Europe and North America, have
adopted a laissez faire approach to sports industry development, GCC gov-
ernments have deliberately and strategically adopted sport as a focus for
national development. Furthermore, their strategies have sought to utilize
sport as a means through which to pursue a range of other goals, from soft-
power projection through to the promotion of social cohesion.
The way in which GCC countries have envisioned their sporting futures
has been ambitious, sometimes on an epic scale. This has often been accompa-
nied by meticulous planning, with many of the world’s leading sports plan-
ners, event managers, and other relevant experts hired to assist Gulf countries
in creating strategies designed to realize their visions for sport. Nevertheless,
challenges remain for the GCC, particularly in the way these strategies are
implemented, managed, and developed. Grand vision is one thing, successful
implementation is another.
The GCC’s drive towards its sporting goals is taking place within a broader
regional context in which there is significant turbulence. In particular, con-
flicts such as that in Syria, allied to political instability in countries including
Libya, simultaneously distinguish the GCC region as being rather more sta-
ble, while at the same time embroiling it in a network of wider political and
religious challenges. These issues manifested in 2017, when Qatar became the
focus of a standoff between GCC countries, which then drew in other
regional powers such as Turkey and Iran. Not only did this undermine a con-
sensus that sport is somehow a unifying force for good, it also called into
question the sports industry strategies being pursued by countries within the
GCC. This highlights the sensitivity of the environment within which the
business of sport operates across the GCC. Equally, economic issues continue
to confront sport in the region, not least because of the pressures faced by this
collection of carbon fuel-dependent nations. Fiscal challenges have become an
important feature of everyday life, but also in sport. Indeed, it will be interest-
ing to monitor how, for example, the emergence of new tax systems in the
region affect the business of sport.

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The tax systems will inevitably raise questions about the role of the state in
GCC countries—sport is dominated by the notion of ‘big state’ across the
region—as well as the objectives states are seeking to achieve with their new
tax regimes. For sport, this arguably poses a more fundamental question: what
role will the state continue to play in sport business development? Continuing
support for sport by the GCC’s governments has helped sustain the industry’s
growth over the last decade, although one must question how long this will
continue. One suspects that in the decade up to 2030, governments will
reevaluate their commitment to sport. Presumably this will result in govern-
ments reaffirming their commitment to sport; otherwise, they may seek to
retrench from existing strategy, perhaps even adopting a more overt private
sector strategy for sport. For each of these potential outcomes, the private
sector’s role in sport looms large. To date, the private sector has played a role
that has been secondary to a GCC government’s role. In the period between
now and 2030, the private sector in sport will need to grow, mature, and
replace the state as the industry’s central focus. This will require sport in the
GCC nations to wean itself off a reliance on state funding and strategy formu-
lation. Whether the private sector will become strong and robust enough will
remain, for the time being at least, a moot point.
Otherwise, there remain some significant challenges for the sport industry
in countries across the GCC. Notwithstanding the potential for ongoing
regional fractiousness, the relative global immaturity of the region’s sport
industry remains an issue, along with some stark differences in industry size
and sophistication between GCC countries. This implies several issues,
including the need for countries such as Bahrain and Oman to pursue similar
strategies to those of their regional neighbors if they are to remain competi-
tive. There is a sense too that if GCC countries are to globally compete in
sport, they may need to collaborate to do so. Clearly, this suggests some fairly
profound issues, many of which are currently in focus due to the ongoing
regional crisis.
For GCC countries currently engaged in executing sport industry strate-
gies, there are other, equally pressing issues. For example, Qatar’s aggressive
investment in sport has attracted widespread criticism, ranging from allega-
tions that the country has engaged in corrupt activity to secure event hosting
rights through to the way in which the country has skewed player transfer
values in football—Brazilian international Neymar’s transfer to Paris Saint-
Germain being a notable example. In addition, concerns remain that Qatar,
and other states in the region, are investing in sport without there actually

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being an established, underpinning culture to sustain the industry. In Qatar’s

case, its ostentatious hosting of the 2015 World Handball Championship led
to the construction of expensive stadia, which are now significantly underuti-
lized. The GCC has to contend with this major issue of sustainability in sport.
Qatar is not, however, alone in sharing such problems; for example, the
UAE is now attracting criticism from some quarters for the way in which it
treats immigrant laborers and denies basic human rights to some sections of
its community. Indeed, English Premier League club Manchester City’s recent
successes have been condemned as being bought with funding from such a
nation. Meanwhile in Saudi Arabia, following recent domestic political
upheaval, the country’s sports strategy is now in a state of disarray. Indeed, it
is believed that several elements—notably the planned privatization of its
professional clubs—have been halted pending a resolution to problems involv-
ing senior figures in the country.
There are other common issues that each GCC state must also seek to
address—issues related to climate, gender, and global acceptance being the
most notable challenges. Given summertime temperatures of 45 degrees
Celsius and above, allied to extreme levels of humidity, climate will always be
an impediment to the staging of major sporting events in the GCC. This
implies that GCC states must either look towards creative solutions for stag-
ing events, or pursue strategies that are driven less by the desire to host com-
petitions and tournaments. As the Qatari football World Cup experience
shows, the world of sport often refuses to countenance challenges to its exist-
ing order. Similarly, given prevailing perceptions elsewhere in the world, there
are likely to remain broader suspicions about some GCC states’ influence of,
and presence in, world sport.
The coming decade should therefore be an intriguing one for the GCC’s
business of sport. There are tremendous opportunities ahead, though some
crucial challenges remain. The region’s sport is a mega-project on a grand scale
which—if successfully developed in a way that is consistent with country
visions—will surely see the region and the GCC members ascend to a much
more prominent position in the global sports landscape. Alternatively, failure
to fulfill strategies or accomplish visions may have serious ramifications for the
post-carbon fuel legacies of the GCC’s six member nations.

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 pp. [1–2]

NOTES

INTRODUCTION: FROM SPORTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST TO MIDDLE

EASTERN SPORTS
1. See for example Omer Aziz and Murtaza Hussain, ‘Qatar’s Showcase of Shame’,
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Space.’ In Is There a Middle East? The Evolution of a Geopolitical Concept, edited
by Michael E. Bonine, Aabbas Amanat and Michael E. Gasper. 1–7. Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2012.

206
 NOTES pp. [3–13]

13. Reiche, Danyel, ‘Investing in sporting success as a domestic and foreign policy

tool: the case of Qatar’, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 7, 4 (2015).
14. Pfister, Gertrud, ‘Outsiders: Muslim Women and Olympic Games–barriers and
Opportunities.’ The International Journal of the History of Sport 27, 16–18 (2010),
pp. 2925–2957.
15. See 2018 World Press Freedom Index at https://rsf.org/en/ranking?#; Freedom
in the World 2018 index at https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/
freedom-world-2018; Gender Inequality Index 2015 at http://hdr.undp.org/en/
data, last accessed 22 January 2019.
16. See Al-Khuli, A., Al-Riada wal-Hadara al-Islamiya, Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-‘Arabi,
1995; ‘Alawi, M. K., Al-Riyada al-Badaniya ‘Ind al-‘Arab, Cairo: Maktabat al-
Nahda al-Misriya, 1947.

1. MAPPING THE ‘SPORTS NAHDA’: TOWARD A HISTORY OF SPORTS

IN THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST
1. Author’s Note: I wish to thank Arash Davari, Chris Silver, Suzi Mirgani, Tamir
Sorek, Danyel Tobias Reiche, Samuel Dolbee, Juliette Rosenthal, Hadia Bakkar,
Issam Nassar, Idan Barir, Mina Khalil, Ziad Abu-Rish, Tania El Khoury, Lara Ayad,
Dylan Baun, Muhannad Salhi, Mikiya Koyagi, Hussein Omar, Shawki Ebeid
El-Zatmah, and the peer reviewers. I would also like to thank the participants in
the ‘Sports, Society, and the State in the Middle East’ working group at the Center
for International and Regional Studies (CIRS), Georgetown University Qatar. This
research was supported in part by the Maurice Amado research and travel grant
(UCLA) and the American Research Institute in Turkey.
2. The official state visit reflects the close relationship that Egypt and Italy maintained
during the 1930s. King Fuad spent a considerable amount of time in Italy during
his youth. King Fuad’s first official state trip was to Italy. See Starr, Deborah,
Remembering Cosmopolitan Egypt: Literature, Culture, and Empire, London & New
York, Routledge, 2009, p. 31; Borsoi, Marzia, ‘Alexandria and Cairo: The “Balad”
or “Terra Nostra” of the Italians in Egypt: 1860–1956’, MA Thesis, University of
North Carolina at Wilmington, 2010, p. 56.
3. ‘Egyptians Welcome Italian Royal Party’, The New York Times (21 February 1933),
p. 22, www.nytimes.com/1933/02/21/archives/egyptians-welcome-italian-royal-
party-great-political-importance-is.html; The Illustrated London News (11 March
1933), p. 348.
4. ‘Al-hafla al-riyadiyya al-kubra li-wizara al-ma‘arif bi munasiba tashrif hadrati sahibi
al-jalala malik wa malika Italiya’ [The Ministry of Education’s large sports festivity
on the occasion of honoring the presence of Italy’s King and Queen], al-Abtal
(4 March 1933), p. 4.
5. ‘Al-hafla al-riyadiyya al-kubra li-wizara al-ma‘arif ’, p. 4.
6. Ibid; This term, ‘sports awakening’ (al-nahda al-riyadiyya), was used in an article
describing sports in Egypt during the 1930s.

207
pp. [13–14] NOTES
7. See, for instance, Hourani, Albert Habib, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–
1939, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983; Wehr, Hans, and J. Milton
Cowan, Arabic–English Dictionary, 3rd ed., Ithaca: Spoken Language Services,
1976, p. 1004.
8. In the past decade, historians of the Middle East have challenged the dominant
narrative of the nahda as exclusively an Arabic literary renaissance. Notable con-
tributions include the following: Khuri-Makdisi, Ilham, The Eastern Mediterranean
and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860–1914, Berkeley & Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 2010; Elshakry, Marwa, Reading Darwin in Arabic,
1860–1950, Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2013; Seikaly,
Sherene, Men of Capital: Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine, Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2016; and Hanssen, Jens, and Max Weiss (eds.), Arabic
Thought Beyond the Liberal Age: Towards an Intellectual History of the Nahda,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
9. Wilson Chacko Jacob’s study of physical culture and masculinity focuses on the
centrality of sports and corporeal reform to modern Egyptian subject formation.
Jacob, Wilson Chacko, Working Out Egypt: Effendi Masculinity and Colonial
Modernity, 1870–1940, Durham: Duke University Press, 2011.
10. For works on Egypt, Iran, Israel, Palestine, Turkey, and the Ottoman Empire, see
Jacob, Working Out Egypt; Lopez, Shaun, ‘Football as National Allegory: Al Ahram
and the Olympics in 1920s Egypt’, History Compass 7, 1 (2009), pp. 282–305;
El-Zatmah, Shawki Ebeid, ‘Aha Goal!: A Social and Cultural History of Football
in Egypt’, PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2014; Chehabi,
Houchang, ‘The Juggernaut of Globalization: Sport and Modernization in Iran’,
The International Journal of the History of Sport 19, 2–3 (2010), pp. 275–94;
Fozooni, Babak, ‘Religion, Politics and Class: Conflict, Contestation in the
Development of Football in Iran’, Soccer and Society 5, 3 (2004), pp. 356–70;
Koyagi, Mikiya, ‘Molding Future Soldiers and Mothers of the Iranian Nation:
Gender and Physical Education under Reza Shah, 1921–41’, The International
Journal of the History of Sport 26, 11 (2009), pp. 1668–96; Schayegh, Cyrus, ‘Sport,
Health, and the Iranian Middle Class in the 1920s and the 1930s’, Iranian Studies
35, 4 (2002), pp. 341–69; Sorek, Tamir, Arab Soccer in a Jewish State: The
Integrative Enclave, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007; Spiegel, Nina
S., Embodying Hebrew Culture: Aesthetics, Athletics, and Dance in the Jewish
Community of Mandate Palestine, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2013;
Khalidi, Issam, ‘Body and Ideology: Early Athletics in Palestine (1900–1948)’,
Jerusalem Quarterly 27 (2006), pp. 44–58; Khalidi, Issam, ‘Coverage of Sports
News in ‘Filistin’, 1911–1948’, Jerusalem Quarterly 44 (2010), pp. 45–69; Khalidi,
Issam, ‘Sports and Aspirations: Football in Palestine 1900–1948’, Jerusalem
Quarterly 58 (2014), pp. 74–89; Krawietz, Birgit, ‘Sport and Nationalism in the
Republic of Turkey’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 31, 3 (2014),
pp. 336–46; Akın, Yiğit, ‘Gürbüz ve Yavuz Evlatlar:’ Erken Cumhuriyet’te Beden

208
 NOTES pp. [14–16]

Terbiyesi ve Spor, İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2004; Cora, Yaşar Tolga, ‘Constructing
and Mobilizing the Nation through Sport: State, Physical Education, and
Nationalism under the Young Turk Rule (1908–1918)’, M.A. thesis, Central
European University, 2007; and Yıldız, Murat C., ‘Strengthening Male Bodies
and Building Robust Communities: Physical Culture in the Late Ottoman Empire’,
PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2015.
11. For studies on the Arab world, see Amara, Mahfoud, Sport, Politics and Society in
the Arab World, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
12. For studies of sports and football in the Middle East, respectively, see Raab, Alon
K., ‘Sport in the Middle East’, in The Oxford Handbook of Sports History, eds.
Robert Edelman and Wayne Wilson, Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 287–
300; Khalidi, Issam, and Alon K. Raab, Soccer in the Middle East, London and
New York: Routledge, 2013; and Dorsey, James M., The Turbulent World of Middle
East Football, London: C. Hurst & Co, 2016.
13. For a discussion about collective and individual reading practices, see Ayalon, Ami,
Reading Palestine: Printing and Literacy, 1900–1948, Austin: University of Texas
Press, 2004, pp. 79–131.
14. Goldstein, Laurence, The Male Body: Features, Destinies, Exposures, vol. 1, Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994, p. 33.
15. For a discussion about the integration of the Middle East into the global world
economy and nation-state system, see Gelvin, James L., The Modern Middle East:
A History, 4th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
16. See Yıldız, ‘Strengthening Male Bodies and Building Robust Communities’.
17. See El-Zatmah, ‘Aha Goal!’; Lopez, ‘Football as National Allegory’; Raab, Alon K.,
‘Sport in the Middle East’.
18. See Chehabi, ‘The Juggernaut of Globalization’, 278; Fozooni, ‘Religion, Politics
and Class’, pp. 356–70.
19. Russell, Mona, Creating the New Egyptian Woman: Consumerism, Education, and
National Identity, 1863–1922, New York: Palgrave, 2004, p. 31.
20. Mak, Lanver, The British in Egypt: Community, Crime, and Crisis, 1822–1922,
New York: I. B. Tauris. 2012, p. 94. Personal memoirs from the 1930s also reveal
the importance of ‘lawn tennis’ for Britons in Egypt. Mabel Caillard writes,
‘Everybody played [tennis]. Hostesses availed themselves a popular form of enter-
tainment by holding their ‘at homes’ in the form of tennis days’. Mabel Caillard,
A Lifetime in Egypt, 1876–1835, London: Grant Richards, 1935, p. 47. In addi-
tion to tennis, racing was very popular. Racing, according to William M. Welch,
Jr., was ‘the favorite spectator sport’. Welch, William M. Jr., No Country For a
Gentleman: British Rule in Egypt, 1883–1907, New York: Greenwood Press, 1988,
p. 33.
21. Ibid.
22. Khalidi, ‘The Coverage of Sports News in “Filistin”, 1911–1948’, p. 46.

209
pp. [16–17] NOTES
23. Ben Prestel, Joseph, Emotional Cities: Debates on Urban Change in Berlin and
Cairo, 1860–1910, New York: Oxford University Press, 2017, p. 179; ‘Nadi’
[Club], al-Hilal (1 May 1904), p. 538.
24. Prestel, Emotional Cities, 179; ‘Nadi,’ al-Hilal, p. 538.
25. ‘Umar discusses sports in his section ‘need of the youth’ (haja al-shaban) which
was aimed at Egypt’s middle stratum. ‘Umar, Muhammad, Hadir al-misriyyin aw
sir ta’akhkhurihim [The Present State of the Egyptians, or, the Cause of their
Retrogression], Cairo: Matba‘at al-Muqtataf, 1902, pp. 199–201. For a discussion
about Muhammad Umar’s book, see Lockman, Zachary, ‘Imagining the Working
Class: Culture, Nationalism, and Class Formation in Egypt, 1899–1914’, Poetics
Today 15, 2 (1994), pp. 157–190.
26. Musallam, Akram, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini: yawmiyyat—rasa’il ve
ta’ammulat. al-kitab al-awwal, New York, Sultana, Jerusalem, 1907–1912 [Diaries
of Khalil al-Sakakini: Diaries, Letters, and Reflections. The First Book, New York,
Sultana, Jerusalem, 1907–1912], Ramallah: Markaz Khalil al-Sakakini al-thaqafi,
Mu’assasat al-dirasat al-qudsiyya, 2003, p. 340.
27. There were also important class distinctions across the region. For example, soci-
ologist Tamir Sorek highlights the fact that many Arab sports clubs in Palestine
attracted ‘working-class individuals and petits bourgeois while the upper classes
remained uninvolved’. Sorek, Arab Soccer in a Jewish State, p. 16.
28. For a discussion of Jewish sports clubs in urban centers of the Middle East, see
Bashkin, Orit, New Babylonians: A History of Jews in Modern Iraq, Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2012, p. 61; Beinin, Joel, The Dispersion of Egyptian
Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of Modern Diaspora, Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1998, p. 79, p. 120; Cabasso, Gilbert, Juifs d’Egypte:
Images et Textes, Paris: Éditions du Scribe, 1984, p. 107, p. 171; Chehabi, Houchang
E., ‘Jews and Sport in Modern Iran’, in The History of Contemporary Iranian Jews,
eds. Homa Sarshar and Houman Sarshar, Beverly Hills: Center for Iranian Jewish
Oral History, 2001, pp. 11–12; Krämer, Gudrun, The Jews in Modern Egypt, 1914–
1952, New York: I.B. Tauris, 1989, p. 111, p. 180; Saposnik, Arieh Bruce, Becoming
Hebrew: The Creation of a Jewish National Culture in Ottoman Palestine, New
York: Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 116; Schulze, Kirsten E., The Jews of
Lebanon: Between Coexistence and Conflict, Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2001,
pp. 48–53; and Yıldız, ‘Strengthening Male Bodies and Building Robust
Communities’, chapter 2. Ofer Idel’s dissertation at the Tel Aviv University, ten-
tatively entitled, ‘Atehlethim Ve-Halutzim: Aliyato Shel Ha-sport Ve-Hagof
Ha-Tsyony Bpalestina, 1918–1939’ [Athletes and Pioneers: The Ascent of Modern
Sport and the Zionist Body in Interwar Palestine], promises to offer insights into
Jewish sports clubs in Mandate Palestine.
29. Many of the Maccabi clubs were Zionist. Nevertheless, it was only until the for-
mation of the Maccabi World Union in the 1920s that institutional and ideolog-

210
 NOTES pp. [17–20]

ical connections were formally established. See Sorek, Arab Soccer in a Jewish State,
pp. 16–17; Galily, Yair and Amir Ben-Porat, eds., Sport, Politics and Society in the
Land of Israel: Past and Present, London and New York: Routledge, 2009; and
Yıldız, Murat C., ‘Discourses and Institutions of Sports in the Modern Middle
East’, in Sports and Society in the Middle East, eds. Hopkins, Nicholas S. and
Sandrine Gamblin, Cairo Papers in Social Science 34, 2 (2016), pp. 12–47.
30. For example, see CZA A192/42 Letter from the Committee of Union Juive
Sportive et Litteraire Macchabée to its members (15 November 1912).
31. Al-Abtal (11 March 1933), p. 22.
32. Toprak, Zafer, ‘Istanbul’da Spor: Vay Em Si Ey (YMCA) Jimnastikhaneleri’ [Sports
in Istanbul: YMCA Gymnasiums], Toplumsal Tarih 2 (1994), pp. 8–12; Yıldız,
‘Discourses and Institutions of Sports in the Modern Middle East’; and Sharkey,
Heather J., American Evangelicals in Egypt: Missionary Encounters in an Age of
Empire, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008.
33. Gershoni, Israel and James P. Jankowski, eds., Redefining the Egyptian Nation,
1930–1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 21; Baron, Beth,
The Orphan Scandal: Christian Missionaries and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood,
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014, p. 121.
34. Matthews, Weldon, Confronting an Empire, Constructing a Nation: Arab
Nationalists and Popular Politics in Mandate Palestine, New York: I. B. Tauris,
2006, pp. 56–60.
35. For a discussion about sports in Ottoman and Egyptian government schools, see
Yıldız, ‘Discourses and Institutions of Sports in the Modern Middle East’,
pp. 12–47; Jacob, Working Out Egypt, p. 88.
36. See, for example, Prestel, Emotional Cities, 166–7;‘Abd al-‘Aziz Jawish, Ghunyat
al-mu’addibin fi al-turuq al-haditha lil-taribiyya wa-l-ta‘lim [Wealth of the edu-
cated in the current path for education], Cairo: Matba‘at al-Hadiya, 1910.
37. Sadiq, Issa Khan, Modern Persia and her Educational System, PhD diss., Columbia
University, 1931, pp. 79–80.
38. Ibid., p. 80.
39. Wasif Jawhariyyeh’s memoirs refer to the school as the National Constitutional
School (al-madrasa al-dusturiyya al-wataniyya). Wasif Jawhariyyeh, Al-Quds al-
‘uthmaniyya fil-mudhakkirat al-Jawhariyyeh: Al-Kitab al-awwal min mudhakki-
rat al-musiqi Wasif Jawhariyyeh 1904–1917, eds. Tamari, Salim and Issam Nassar
[Ottoman Jerusalem in the memoirs of al-Jawhariyyeh: the First Book from the
memoirs of the musician Wasif al-Jawhariyyeh, 1904–1917], Beirut: Mu’assasah
al-dirasat al-Filastiniyya, 2005, p. 126.
40. Musallam, Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini, pp. 347–8.
41. Jawhariyyeh, Al-Quds al-‘uthmaniyya fil-mudhakkirat al-Jawhariyyeh, p. 128.
42. Ibid., p. 127.
43. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, educators translated the

211
pp. [21–22] NOTES
concept slightly differently. For example, al-Sakakini translates ‘a sound mind
[lives] in a sound body’ as al-‘aql al-sahih fil-jism al-sahih, whereas Jurj Atlas, a
Syrian educator living in Brazil and writing in Arabic, renders the concept as ‘al-
‘aql al-salim fil-jism al-salim’. For Atlas’ use of the mantra in Arabic, see Fahrenthold,
Stacy, ‘Sound Minds in Sound Bodies: Transnational Philanthropy and Patriotic
Masculinity in al-Nadi al-Homsi and Syrian Brazil, 1920–1932’, International
Journal of Middle East Studies 46, 2 (2014), pp. 259–83. For the localization and
spread of the maxim in Iran, see Schayegh, Cyrus, ‘“A Sound Mind lives in a Healthy
Body”: Texts and Contexts in the Iranian Modernists’ Scientific Discourse of
Health, 1910s–40s’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 37 (2005),
pp. 167–88.
44. There is a large literature on the AIU. See, for example, Laskier, Michael M., The
Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Jewish Communities of Morocco: 1862–1962,
Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983; Rodrigue, Aron, French Jews,
Turkish Jews: The Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Politics of Jewish Schooling
in Turkey, 1860–1925, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990; Sciarcon,
Jonathan, Educational Oases in the Desert: The Alliance Israelite Universelle’s Girls’
Schools in Ottoman Iraq, 1895–1915, Albany: State University of New York Press,
2017; and Cohen, Avraham, ‘Iranian Jewry and the Educational Endeavors of the
Alliance Israélite Universelle’, Jewish Social Studies 48, 1 (1986), pp. 15–44.
45. Instructions Générales pour les Professeurs, Paris, 1903, p. 47.
46. Ibid.
47. ‘Mr. V. Everit Macy Makes Gift to Build New Athletic Field’, The News Letter—
Robert College, Constantinople Women’s College, American University of Beirut,
March 1924.
48. Ibid.
49. Note, Howard Bliss is referring to soccer, not American football.
50. Bliss, Howard, ‘Sunshine in Turkey’, National Geographic Magazine (20 January
1909), p. 75.
51. Ibid. Bliss more than likely was not exaggerating when he wrote this.
52. Schayegh, ‘Sport, Health, and the Iranian Middle Class in the 1920s and the 1930s’,
p. 22.
53. ‘Basket Ball is A.U.C. Major Sport’, The A.U.C. Review (1 November 1927), p. 4.
54. ‘Basketball Schedule to December 31’, The A.U.C. Review (13 December 1926),
p. 4.
55. ‘Football Coach is Encouraged, He Says—Prospects for Season are Fair, is Belief ’,
The A.U.C. Review (29 November 1926), p. 3.
56. For a discussion about the emergence of basketball at the American University of
Beirut, see McClenahan, William, ‘Lebanese Sport from a Basketball Perspective’,
MA thesis, American University of Beirut, 2007.

212
 NOTES pp. [22–29]

57. Jacob, Working Out Egypt, p. 80; Al-doktor ‘Abd al-Aziz ‘Abd al-Mowjud, ‘al-riyada
al-badaniyya ‘and al-masriyyin al-qudama’ [Physical Exercise among the Ancient
Egyptians], al-Hilal (1 April 1902), pp. 403–6.
58. The press in postwar Beirut and Damascus also featured magazines devoted to
sports. See Elizabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal
Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon, New York: Columbia
University Press, 2000, p. 212.
59. For example, Al-Musawar (the illustrated), one of Egypt’s leading illustrated weekly
magazines, ran a sports edition, entitled ‘al-musawar al-riyadi’ (sports illustrated),
Al-Musawar (9 January 1931).
60. Jacob, Wilson C., ‘Overcoming Simply Being: Straight Sex, Masculinity, and
Physical Culture in Egypt’, Gender and History 22, 3 (2010), pp. 1–19; Schayegh,
‘Sport, Health, and the Iranian Middle Class in the 1920s and the 1930s’.
61. Ibid., 14. This process was inextricably connected to the merging of the sacred and
the profane through the construction of the concept of physical culture as al-
riyada al-badaniyya, in Arabic. See Jacob, Working Out Egypt, pp. 72–3.
62. Koyagi, ‘Molding Future Soldiers and Mothers of the Iranian Nation’; Schayegh,
‘Sport, Health, and the Iranian Middle Class in the 1920s and the 1930s’.
63. Asıf, Burhan, ‘Nasıl Futbol Oynuyoruz?’ [How Do We Play Football?], Spor Alemi
(30 November 1920), pp. 8–9.
64. ‘Tarbiyya al-badaniyya’ [Physical Training], Al-Abtal (4 February 1933), p. 10.
65. ‘Athar al-Riyada fil-Akhlaq’ [Effects of Sports on Morality], al-Abtal (14 January
1933), p. 1.
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid.
68. See, for example, Spor Alemi (8 July 1925).
69. Frierson, Elizabeth B., Unimagined Communities: State, Press, and Gender in the
Hamidian Era, PhD diss., Princeton University, 1996.
70. ‘İstanbul Kız Lisesi’nde Spor’ [Sports in Istanbul Girls’ High School], Spor Alemi
(3 March 1926), pp. 10–11.
71. ‘Afdal anwa‘ al-riyada lil-nisa’ [Best type of sports for women], al-Muqtataf ( June
1920), p. 529.
72. Ibid.
73. Koyagi, ‘Molding Future Soldiers and Mothers of the Iranian Nation’, p. 1683.
74. Schayegh, ‘Sport, Health, and the Iranian Middle Class in the 1920s and the 1930s’,
p. 13; Koyagi, ‘Molding Future Soldiers and Mothers of the Iranian Nation’,
p. 1674.
75. For a discussion about the transnational spread of ideas, practices, and institutions
in the mahjar, see Arsan, Andrew, John Karam, and Akram Khater, ‘On Forgotten
Shores: Migration in Middle East Studies and the Middle East in Migration
Studies’, Mashriq&Mahjar 1, 1 (2013), pp. 1–7; Arsan, Andrew, ‘“This Age is the

213
pp. [29–32] NOTES
Age of Associations”: Committees, Petitions, and the Roots of Interwar Middle
Eastern Internationalism, Journal of Global History 7, 2 (2012), pp. 166–88;
Bailony, Reem, ‘Transnationalism and the Syrian Migrant Community: The Case
of the 1925 Syrian Revolt’, Mashriq&Mahjar 1, 1 (2013), pp. 8–29; Balloffet, Lily
Pearl, ‘From the Pampa to the Mashriq: Arab-Argentine Philanthropy Networks’,
Mashriq&Mahjar 4, 1 (2017), pp. 4–28; Fahrenthold, Stacy, ‘Sound Minds in
Sound Bodies: Transnational Philanthropy and Patriotic Masculinity in al-Nadi
al-Homsi and Syrian Brazil, 1920–1932’, International Journal of Middle East
Studies 46, 2 (2014), pp. 259–83.
76. Fahrenthold, ‘Sound Minds in Sound Bodies’, p. 275.
77. For a more extensive treatment of al-Abtal, al-Riyada al-Badaniyya, and the pres-
ence semi-nude male bodies, see Jacob, Working Out Egypt, pp. 142–55.
78. Al-Abtal (28 January 1933), p. 20.
79. Ibid.
80. Al-Abtal created an entire section dedicated to sports in Iraq: ‘al-Riyada fil-‘Iraq’
[Sports in Iraq], Al-Abtal (14 January 1933), p. 21.
81. For a discussion on the emergence, dissemination, and growing popularity of the
sportsman genre of photography among Muslims, Christians, and Jews of late
Ottoman Empire, see Yıldız, Murat C., ‘“What is a Beautiful Body?” Late Ottoman
“Sportsman” Photographs and New Notions of Male Corporeal Beauty’ in ‘Critical
Histories of Photography in the Middle East’, Special Issue of the Middle East
Journal of Culture and Communication 8, 2–3 (2015), pp. 192–214.
82. Baun, Dylan, ‘Lebanon’s Youth Clubs and the 1936 Summer Olympics: Mobilizing
Sports, Challenging Imperialism and Launching a National Project’, The
International Journal of the History of Sport 34, 13 (2017), pp. 1347–65.
83. Lopez, ‘Football as National Allegory’.
84. Dolbee, Samuel, ‘Mandatory Body Building, Nationalism, Masculinities, Class, and
Physical Activity in 1930s Syria’, M.A. Thesis, Georgetown University, 2009.
85. Yildiz, ‘Discourses and Institutions of Sports in the Modern Middle East’.
86. Sorek, Arab Soccer in a Jewish State; Khalidi, ‘Coverage of Sports News in Filistin,
1911–1948’.
87. Schayegh, ‘Sport, Health, and the Iranian Middle Class in the 1920s and the 1930s’.
88. See Ayalon, Reading Palestine.
89. The February 1926 ‘Cairo Football Calendar’, for example, consisted of games
played in the Cairo Military Football League, the Command Cup, Sultan’s Cup,
YMCA, and other matches, The Egyptian Gazette (19 February 1926), p. 5.
90. For a discursive reading of Egypt’s performance at the Olympics in 1924, see Lopez,
‘Football as National Allegory’; Jacob, Working Out Egypt; and Baun, ‘Lebanon’s
Youth Clubs and the 1936 Summer Olympics’.
91. For a discussion about department stores in Egypt, see Reynolds, Nancy Y.,
‘Entangled Communities: Interethnic Relationships among Urban Salesclerks and

214
 NOTES pp. [32–35]

 Domestic Workers in Egypt, 1927–1961’, The European Review of History/Revue

européenne d’histoire 19, 1 (2012), pp. 113–39.
92. Spor Alemi (19 April 1922), p. 10.
93. For a discussion about the store, see Abdulhaq, Najat, Jewish and Greek
Communities in Egypt: Entrepreneurship and Business before Nasser, New York:
I.B. Tauris, 2016.
94. Program Fifth Annual Sports Day of the College of Arts and Sciences of the American
University at Cairo (1925), advertisement section.
95. Ibid.
96. Khalidi, Walid, Before their Diaspora: A Photographic History of the Palestinians,
1876–1948, Washington, D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1991; Tamari,
Salim, The Great War and the Remaking of Palestine, Berkeley & Los Angeles:
the University of California Press, 2017, pp. 53–57.
97. The two most important were Union Club and Taksim Stadium. Union Club
predates Taksim Stadium; however, Taksim Stadium became the more popular
venue during the Allied occupation of the city from 1918 until 1923.
98. El-Zatmah, ‘Aha Goal!’; Dolbee, ‘Mandatory Body Building’.
99. El-Zatmah, ‘Aha Goal!’
100. ‘Football’, The Egyptian Gazette (11 February 1918), p. 5.
101. Presented and annotated by Rifat N. Bali, Sports and Physical Education in Turkey
in the 1930s: a Report by Eugene M. Hinkle, Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2009, p. 46.
102. Ibid., 47.
103. ‘Egyptian Football: Prince Farouk’s Cup Final’, The Egyptian Gazette (28 March
1925), p. 5.
104. Ibid.
105. See, for example, Cromer, Lord, Modern Egypt, New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1916. Cromer, who was the British agent and consul general of Egypt
from 1883 to 1907, often refers to fundamental differences between Europeans
and people of the East. For a discussion about the transitional state of Egypt, see
Cromer’s reference to Stephen Cave, a British official who had been sent to Cairo
to write a report on the financial state of Egypt: ‘Egypt may be said to be in a
transitional state, and she suffers from the defects of the system out of which she
is passing, as well as from those of the system into which she is attempting to
enter. She suffers from the ignorance, dishonesty, waste, and extravagance of the
East, such as have brought her suzerain to the verge of ruin, and at the same time
from the vast expense caused by hasty and inconsiderate endeavors to adopt the
civilisation of the West’, Modern Egypt, p. 4.
106. ‘Neutral Referees: Dissatisfaction in Cairo Match’, The Egyptian Gazette
(13 February 1924), p. 5.
107. Ibid.
108. Ibid.

215
pp. [35–42] NOTES
109. ‘Football in Cairo: E.S.R.I V. R.A.F. Eleven—Abandoned’, The Egyptian Gazette
(1 March 1924), p. 5.
110. Ibid.
111. See, for example, Faraj, Al-Sayid, Kabtin Masr: Hussein Higazi [Captain Egypt:
Hussein Higazi], Cairo: al-Majlis al-A‘la li-Ri‘ayat al-Shabab, 1961.
112. This discussion about punctuality in sports can contribute to the literature on
temporality in the Middle East. For example, see Barak, On, On Time: Technology
and Temporality in Modern Egypt, Los Angeles: University of California Press,
2013; Wishnitzer, Avner, Reading Clocks, Alla Turca: Time and Society in the
Late Ottoman Empire, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2015; and Ogle,
Vanessa, The Global Transformation of Time 1870–1950, Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2015.
113. Ibid. ‘Maalesh’, according to many nineteenth- and twentieth-century descrip-
tions of Egypt, meant ‘it does not matter’. See, for example, Griffiths, Arthur,
‘Egyptian Prisons’, The North American Review 165, 490 (1897), p. 282; Madden,
R. R., M. D., Travels in Turkey, Egypt, Nubia and Palestine: In 1824, 1825, 1826,
and 1827, London: Whittaker Treacher, and Co., 1883, p. 319; and Cocteau,
Jean, Maalesh: A Theatrical Tour in the Middle-East, P. Owen, 1956.
114. For a discussion about the discursive framing of Egypt’s participation in the
Olympics, see Lopez, Shaun, ‘Football as National Allegory’, pp. 282–305.
115. Ibid.
116. ‘Avrupalılar Türkleri nasıl biliyorlar?’ [How do Europeans know Turks], Spor
Alemi (8 February 1922), p. 2.
117. ‘Umar, Hadir al-misriyyin aw sir ta’akhkhurihim, p. 199.
118. Sorek, Arab Soccer in a Jewish State, p. 24.
1119. Khuri-Makdisi, The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism,
pp. 26–27.

2. FOOTBALL’S ROLE IN HOW SOCIETIES REMEMBER: THE SYMBOLIC

WARS OF JORDANIAN–PALESTINIAN FOOTBALL
1. Halbwachs, Maurice, Collective Memory, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992.
2. Ibid.
3. Olick, Jeffrey K., and Joyce Robbins, ‘Social Memory Studies: From “Collective
Memory” to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices’, Annual Review of
Sociology 24, (1998), p. 133.
4. Olick and Robbins, ‘Social Memory Studies’, p. 126.
5. Among the exceptions are: King, Anthony, ‘Violent Pasts: Collective Memory and
Football Hooliganism’, The Sociological Review 49, 4 (2001), pp. 568–85; Robson,
Garry, No One Likes Us, We Don’t Care: The Myth and Reality of Millwall Fandom,
Oxford: Berg, 2000.

216
 NOTES pp. [42–49]

6. Gilen, Signe, Are Hovenak, Rania Maktabi, Jon Pedersen, and Dag Tuastad,
Finding Ways: Palestinian Coping Strategies in Changing Environments, Oslo: Fafo,
1994.
7. Tuastad, Dag, ‘The Political Role of Football for Palestinians in Jordan’, in Entering
the Field: New Perspectives on World Football, ed. Gary Armstrong and Richard
Giulianotti, Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1997, pp. 105–22.
8. Tuastad, Dag, ‘From Football Riot to Revolution. The Political Role of Football
in the Arab World’, Soccer and Society 14, 2 (February 2013), pp. 1–13; Tuastad,
Dag, ‘“A Threat to National Unity”—Football in Jordan: Ethnic Divisive or a
Political Tool for the Regime?’ The International Journal of the History of Sport 31,
14 ( July 2014), pp. 1774–88; Tuastad, Dag, ‘The Challenges of Managing Sport
in a Divided Society’, in Managing Sport: Social and Cultural Perspectives, ed. David
Hassan and Jim Lusted, New York: Routledge, 2013, pp. 171–85.
9. Mulukhiya is a plant-based stew popular in the Middle East, North Africa, and
Eastern Mediterranean.
10. Cleveland, William L., A History of the Modern Middle East, Oxford: Westview
Press, 2000, pp. 347.
11. Rogan, Eugene, The Arabs: A History, New York: Basic Books, 2009, pp. 345.
12. Sayigh, Yezid, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National
Movement, 1949–1993, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
13. On the Palestinian quest for victory, see chapter 10 in Sorek, Tamir, Palestinian
Commemoration in Israel: Calendars, Monuments, and Martyrs, Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2015, pp. 199–216.
14. Tuastad, ‘The Political Role of Football,’ 114.
15. Interview by author with Sobhi Ibrahim, Vice President of Wihdat, Amman, June
1997.
16. Brand, Laurie A., Palestinians in the Arab World: Institution Building and the
Search for State, New York: Colorado University Press, 1988, p. 53.
17. Alon, Yoav, The Making of Jordan, London: I. B. Tauris, 2009.
18. Ibid., p. 157.
19. Ibid., p. 152.
20. Watson, Russel, ‘A Lion in Winter’, Newsweek, 7 February 1999, www.newsweek.
com/lion-winter-169032; Wurmser, David, ‘The Forces that Brought Crown
Prince Hassan Down’, Behind the News in Israel, 2 February 1999, http://israel-
behindthenews.com/the-forces-the-brought-crown-prince-hassan-down/3126/.
21. Tell, Tariq, ‘Early Spring in Jordan: The Revolt of the Military Veterans’, Carnegie
Middle East Center, 4 November 2015, http://carnegieendowment.org/files/
ACMR_Tell_Jordan_Eng_final.pdf, last accessed 23 January 2019.
22. ‘Jordanian Football Game Halted Amidst Anti-Regime Chants, Hooliganism
Towards Palestinians’, WikiLeaks Updates, 7 December 2010, http://wikileak-
supdates.blogspot.com/2010/12/jordanian-soccer-game-halted-amidst.html; last

217
pp. [49–53] NOTES
accessed 23 January 2019; Jacobson, Philip ‘Jordan Cracks Down amid Fears of
Spreading Palestinian Unrest,’ The Telegraph, 10 June 2001, www.telegraph.co.uk/
news/worldnews/middleeast/jordan/1309922/Jordan-cracks-down-amid-fears-
of-spreading-Palestinian-unrest.html, last accessed 23 January 2019.
23. Raed Omari, ‘Probe Continues into Friday Football-related Violence’, Jordan
Times, 12 December 2010, www.jordantimes.com/?news=32549, last accessed
23 Jan, 2019.
24. Roey Simioni, ‘Queen Rania is a Corrupt Thief,’ Ynet.news.com, 14 February 2011,
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4028607,00.html.
25. Simioni, ‘Queen Rania is a Corrupt Thief.’
26. Interview with author, Amman, March, 2011.
27. Although the Palestinians constitute a majority of the Jordanian population, only
25 percent of the parliament may be elected from the areas where Palestinians live.
Within the ethnic homogenous Karak electoral district there are 50,000 inhabit-
ants who elect six members to the parliament (only East Bankers). From the largely
homogenous Palestinian electoral district of Zarqa, 500,000 Palestinians elect
seven representatives. In other words, the vote of one East Banker equals ten
Palestinian votes. See Adnan Abu-Odeh, Jordanians, Palestinians, and the
Hashemite Kingdom in the Middle East Peace Process (Washington, DC: United
States Institute of Peace Press, 1999), 250.
28. Daoud Kuttab, ‘Jordan, Fatah’s Achilles’ Heel,’ Al Monitor, 29 November 2016,
www.al-monitor.com/pulse/en/originals/2016/11/palestine-fatah-seventh-con-
gress-jordan-tension.html.
29. Interview with author, Amman, May 2014.
30. Lapidoth, Ruth, ‘A Recent Agreement on the Holy Places in Jerusalem’, Israel
Journal of Foreign Affairs 7, 3 (2013), p. 65.
31. Groisman, Maayan, ‘After Losing to a Palestinian-affiliated Team, Jordanian Soccer
Fans Chant Pro-Israeli Slogans’, Jerusalem Post, 2 May 2016, www.jpost.com/
Middle-East/After-losing-to-a-Palestinian-affiliated-team-Jordanian-soccer-fans-
chant-pro-Israel-slogans-452859, last accessed 23 January 2019.
32. Conversation with contributor to Wihdat’s official magazine who also handed me
a copy of the magazine with a picture showing the burning incident, Amman, May
2014.
33. Tuastad, ‘A Threat to National Unity.’
34. McDonald, David A., ‘Poetics and the Performance of Violence in Israel/Palestine’,
Ethnomusicology 53, 1 (2009), pp. 58–85.
35. McDonald, David A., My Voice Is My Weapon: Music, Nationalism and the Poetics
of Palestinian Resistance, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014), pp. 64–5.
36. Cleveland, A History, p. 347.
37. Barakat, Halim, The Arab World: Society, Culture, and State, Durham, NC:
University of California Press, 1993, p. 55.

218
 NOTES pp. [54–58]

38. S wedenburg, Ted, ‘The Palestinian Peasant as National Signifier’, Anthropological

Quarterly 63, 1 (1990), p. 22.
39. Abu-Odeh, Jordanians, Palestinians, p. 253.
40. Delgado, Fernando, ‘Sport and Politics: Major League Soccer, Constitution, and
(the) Latino Audience(s)’, Journal of Sport and Social Issues 23, 1 (1999), p. 41;
Stroeken, Koen, ‘Why “the World” Loves Watching Football (and “the Americans”
Don’t),’ Anthropology Today 18, 3 (2002), pp. 9–13.
41. Archetti, Eduardo and Romero, Amílcar G., ‘Death and Violence in Argentinian
Football’, in Football, Violence and Social Identity, ed. Richard Guilianotti, London:
Routledge, 1994, p. 39.

3. HAPOEL TEL AVIV AND ISRAELI LIBERAL SECULARISM

1. Smooha, Sammy, Still Playing by the Rules: Index of Arab-Jewish Relations in Israel
2012, Jerusalem: The Israel Democracy Institute and University of Haifa, 2013.
2. Elias, Norbert and Elias Dunning, Quest for Excitement: Sport and Leisure in the
Civilising Process, Oxford: Blackwell, 1986.
3. Ben Porat, Amir, Ho, eizo milhama me’aneget: ohadei kaduregel yisraelim [Oh, such
a delighted war: Israelis football fans], Haifa: Pardes, 2007, p. 24.
4. The survey was conducted by Avichai Shuv Ami from the College of Management
at Tel Aviv.
5. Data courtesy of the Guttman Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at
the Israel Democracy Institute.
6. Shafir, Gershon, and Yoav Peled, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship,
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
7. Sternhell, Zeev, The Founding Myths of Israel: Nationalism, Socialism, and the
Making of the Jewish State, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.
8. For some indications of the association between religiosity and an exclusionary
vision of citizenship, see Hermann, Tamar, Chanan Cohen, Ella Heller, and Dana
Bublil, The Israeli Democracy Index 2015, Jerusalem: The Guttman Center for
Public Opinion and Policy Research, 2015, https://en.idi.org.il/media/3585/
democracy_index_2015_eng.pdf, last accessed 23 January 2019.
9. De Picciotto, Motti, ‘Ha-smalim ha-hadashim: seqer ha-ohadim ha-gadol shel
ligat ha-‘al’, [The New Symbols: the Great Premier League Fan Survey], Walla,
2 April 2014, http://sports.walla.co.il/?w=/7/2734410, last accessed 23 January
2019.
10. ‘Maccabi’ is the singular form of the people known in English as Maccabees, war-
riors in ancient Judaea who overthrew Greek-Syrian rule around 165 BCE. The
Hannukah holiday was born from this revolt.
11. Ben-Porat, Amir, ‘The Commodification of Football in Israel’, International Review
for the Sociology of Sport 33, 3 (1998), pp. 269–76.

219
pp. [58–63] NOTES
12. The Ultras phenomenon has different origins, mainly in Brazil and Italy. In Italy,
they have existed since the 1950s and they gradually globalized since the 1980s.
13. Interview with the author, 21 January 2013.
14. See ‘Antifa Football Teams’, Facebook, www.facebook.com/AntifaFootballTeams.
AFT, last accessed 23 January 2019.
15. Between 1995 and 2015, Hapoel Tel Aviv represented Israel sixteen times in var-
ious European competitions, and in the 2001–2002 season the team reached the
UEFA Cup quarter-final.
16. The main motivation for this support was their objection to the mayor, Ron Huldai,
because of his decision to destroy the historical auditorium of the basketball club.
Anger at this move enabled Hanin to get support from larger circles of Hapoel
fans, beyond the ideologically committed Ultras. Hanin got 34 percent of the
votes and lost the elections. For more on the political activism of the Ultras, see
Daniel Regev, ‘“meyatsgim et Hapoel ve-lo et yisrael”’ [We represent Hapoel and
not Israel] in Kaduregel Shayakh La-Ohadim! [Football belongs to the fans!], ed.
Tamar Rapoport, Resling, 2016, pp. 149–178.
17. Shlomo Resnik, ‘Agudat ha-sport beitar—sport u-politiqa be-hevra mefuleget’
[The sport association Beitar: Sport and politics and a divided society], in Tarbut
ha-guf ve-hasport be-yisrael ba-meah ha-‘esrim [Body culture and sport in Israel in
the twentieth century], eds. Haim Kaufman and Hagai Harif, Jerusalem: Yad Ben-
Zvi 2002, pp. 159–183.
18. The data is based on an online survey conducted in September 2012 by Avichai
Shuv Ami and Tamir Sorek. The sample included 500 respondents who consti-
tute a representative sample of the adult Hebrew-speaking population in Israel.
19. See the documentary movie on Betar, Forever Pure, Yes Docu, Duckin’ & Divin’
Films, and Maya Films, directed by Maya Zinshtein, 2016.
20. Ben Porat, Ho, eizo milhama me’aneget, p. 191.
21. Betar and Kach share the same colors, black and yellow. It is likely that when Kach
was founded in 1971 by the Jewish American Rabbi Meir Kahana his choice of
color was not incidental.
22. Peled, Yoav, ‘Labor Market Segmentation and Ethnic Conflict: The Social Basis
of Right-wing Politics in Israel’, in The Elections in Israel 1988, eds. Asher Arian
and Michal Shamir, Boulder: Westview Press, 1990, pp. 93–113.
23. Shohat, Ella, ‘Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Jewish
Victims’, Social Text 19–20 (1988), pp. 1–35.
24. Regev, ‘meyatsgim et Hapoel ve-lo et yisrael,’ p. 155
25. On the marginality of Arab citizens in Israeli basketball, see Tamir Sorek, ‘Sport,
Palestine, and Israel’, in A Companion to Sport, eds. David L. Andrews and Ben
Carrington, Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2010, pp. 257–69.
26. See the project website, ‘Homepage’, Mifalot Education and Society Enterprises,
http://mifalot.co.il, last accessed 23 January 2019.

220
 NOTES pp. [64–67]

27. Hermann, Cohen, Heller, and Bublil, The Israeli Democracy Index 2015.
28. About 8 percent of Israeli Jews defined themselves as Haredim, commonly trans-
lated as ultra-Orthodox. These people are strictly observant of Jewish religious
law and highly segregated from the rest of society. The Haredi group arose in reac-
tion to secular Enlightenment, its members sharply separating themselves from
both non-Jews and relatively assimilated Jews.
29. Sometimes referred to as national-religious or Zionist-religious, Israeli Jews who
view themselves as ‘religious’ constitute between 10 and 12 percent of the Jewish
population. The origins of this group are found in those parts of the Jewish
Orthodoxy reacting moderately to the Enlightenment and later adopting
Zionism—aspects that distance them from the ultra-Orthodox.
30. The ‘traditional’ Jew is a relatively recent invention, a category aimed at covering
the large ‘grey’ area between religious and non-religious. See Yaacov Yadgar and
Charles Liebman, ‘Me-‘ever la-dikhotomya dati-hiloni: ha-masortiyim be-yisrael’
[Beyond the religious-secular dichotomy: Masortim in Israel], in Yisrael
Ve-Hamoderniyut [Israeli and modernity], eds. Uri Cohen, Eliezer Ben Rafael, Avi
Bareli and Ephraim Ya’ar, Jerusalem: The Ben Gurion Research Institute for the
Study of Israel and Zionism, 2006, pp. 337–366.
31. Ibid.
32. Ram, Uri, ‘Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the Bifurcation of Israel’, International Journal
of Politics, Culture and Society 19, 1/2 (2005), pp. 21–33.
33. Author’s translation of ‘simu et yerushalayim be-yarden’, [Put Jerusalem in Jordan],
YouTube, 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7-keT45suI, last accessed
23 January 2019.
34. Sorek, Tamir, ‘Between Football and Martyrdom: The Bi-focal Localism of an
Arab-Palestinian Town in Israel’, British Journal of Sociology 56, 4 (2005), pp. 635–
61.
35. Regev, ‘meyatsgim et Hapoel ve-lo et yisrael.’
36. Zertal, Idith, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, Cambridge and New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
37. Liebman, Charles and Eliezer Don-Yehiye, Civil Religion in Israel: Traditional
Judaism and Political Culture in the Jewish State, Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1983.
38. Zertal, Israel’s Holocaust.
39. Swidler, Ann, ‘Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies’, American Sociological
Review 51, 2 (1986), pp. 273–86.
40. Eran, Shor, ‘Utilizing Rights and Wrongs: Right-wing, the ‘Right’ Language, and
Human Rights in the Gaza Disengagement’, Sociological Perspectives 51, 4 (2008),
pp. 803–26.
41. Rimon-Or, Anat, ‘Mi-mot ha-‘aravi ad ‘mavet la-‘aravim’: ha-yehudi ha-moderni
mul ha-‘aravi ha-hai be-tokho’ [From the death of the Arab to ‘death for the Arabs’:

221
pp. [67–74] NOTES
The modern Jew and the Arab who lives inside him], Teorya u-Viqoret 20 [Theory
and criticism 20] (2002), pp. 23–56.
42. ‘Im yatsi’a shar shoah le-makabi zo lo ‘avera,’ [If the audience in the bleacher sings
a holocaust song, it is not a crime], Walla, 9 November 2011, http://sports.walla.
co.il/item/1875623, last accessed 23 January 2019.
43. Clip uploaded by Yahav Marom to YouTube, 1 May 2007, www.youtube.com/
watch?v=ZPVa8pQW4F4, last accessed 23 January 2019.
44. A commonly parodied clip from the film Downfall, based on the scene where
Hitler receives news of the advancing Red Army, in which subtitles from the orig-
inal movie are replaced with different ones.
45. Author’s translation of Salonim, Amit, ‘Auschwitz Biblumfield: Eikh kavshu
bituyey ha-sina et ha-yetsi’im’, [Auschwitz in Bloomfield: How hate expressions
conquered the bleachers], Mako, 11 April 2010, www.mako.co.il/Sports-
football-il/premier-league/Article-4a3332d7ff4c021006.htm, last accessed
23 January 2019.
46. Sorek, Tamir and Alin M. Ceobanu, ‘Religiosity, National Identity, and Legitimacy:
Israel as an Extreme Case’, Sociology 43, 3 (2009), pp. 477–96.
47. A survey conducted by Israel Democracy Institute’s Guttman Center for Surveys
in 2009, N=2803.
48. ‘The Social Survey Table Generator of the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics,’
Central Bureau of Statistics, http://surveys.cbs.gov.il/Survey/surveyE.htm, last
accessed 23 January 2019.
49. Ibid.
50. Claire Mitchell, ‘The Religious Content of Ethnic Identities’, Sociology 40, 6 (2006),
pp. 1137.
51. Sorek and Ceobanu, ‘Religiosity, National Identity, and Legitimacy.’
52. Liebman and Don-Yehiye, Civil Religion in Israel.
53. Kimmerling, Baruch, ‘Religion, Nationalism and Democracy in Israel’,
Constellations 6, 3 (1999), pp. 339–63.
54. Kimmerling, ‘Religion, Nationalism and Democracy in Israel’, pp. 341.
55. Liebman and Don-Yehiye, Civil Religion in Israel, p. 129.
56. Ibid., p. 131.

4. 
QATARI FEMALE FOOTBALLERS: NEGOTIATING GENDERED
EXPECTATIONS
1. Bayat, Asef, Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East,
Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013, pp. 116.
2. Whannel, Garry, Culture, Politics and Sport: Blowing the Whistle, Revisited, London:
Routledge, 2008.
3. Jayne Caudwell, ‘Gender, Feminism and Football Studies’, Soccer & Society 12, 3
(2011), pp. 330–44.

222
 NOTES pp. [74–75]

4. For discussions on football and identity relating to the Middle East, see Tuastad,
Dag, ‘From Football Riot to Revolution: The Political Role of Football in the Arab
World’, Soccer & Society 15, 3 (2014), pp. 376–88; Stevenson, Thomas B., and
Abdul Karim Alaug, ‘Football in Newly United Yemen: Rituals of Equity, Identity,
and State Formation’, Journal of Anthropological Research 56, 4 (2000), pp. 453–
75.
5. Web Desk, ‘Seven Reasons Why World Cup 2022 in Qatar will be more Sand
than Sail’, Tribune, 2 March 2015, www.tribune.com.pk/story/846587/seven-rea-
sons-why-world-cup-2022-in-qatar-will-be-more-sand-than-sail, last accessed
23 January 2019; Joe Hall, ‘Qatar 2022 World Cup: The Six Biggest Problems
with the Controversial Tournament’, CITYA.M., 25 February 2015, www.cityam.
com/210256/qatar-2022-world-cup-eight-biggest-problems-controversial-tourna-
ment, last accessed 23 January 2019; John Duerden, ‘Qatar’s World Cup Résumé:
Zero Games. 2022 Host’ The New York Times, 1 April 2017, www.nytimes.
com/2017/04/01/sports/soccer/qatar-world-cup-2022.html, last accessed 23 Jan­
uary 2019; Robert Booth, ‘“We will be Ready, Inshallah”: Inside Qatar’s $200bn
World Cup’, The Guardian, 14 November 2015, www.theguardian.com/foot-
ball/2015/nov/14/qatar-world-cup-200-billion-dollar-gamble, last accessed
23 January 2019.
6. Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics, Sports in Qatari Society: A
Statistical Overview, 2016, www.mdps.gov.qa/en/statistics/Statistical%20Releases/
Social/Sport/2016/Sport_In_Qatar_2016_En.pdf, last accessed 23 January 2019.
7. For a discussion of Qatari sports investments and the FIFA 2022 World Cup, see
Lysa, Charlotte, ‘Gåten Qatar 2022’, [The Qatar 2022 Enigma] Babylon—Nordic
Journal for Middle East Studies 1 (2016) (in Norwegian); Brannagan, Paul Michael
and Richard Giulianotti, ‘Soft Power and Soft Disempowerment: Qatar, Global
Sport and Football’s 2022 World Cup Finals’, Leisure Studies 34, 6 (2015), pp. 703–
19; Reiche, Danyel, ‘Investing in Sporting Success as a Domestic and Foreign Policy
Tool: The Case of Qatar’, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 7, 4
(2015), pp. 489–504; Dorsey, James M., ‘The 2022 World Cup: A Potential
Monkey Wrench for Change’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 31,
14 (2014), pp. 1739–54; Scharfenort, Nadine, ‘Urban Development and Social
Change in Qatar: The Qatar National Vision 2030 and the 2022 FIFA World
Cup’, Journal of Arabian Studies 2, 2 (2012), pp. 209–30.
8. ‘ Women and Sport’, Qatar Olympic Committee, www.olympic.qa/en/
SportInQatar/Pages/WomenAndSport.aspx, last accessed 12 November 2016.
9. Kelly Knez, Tansin Benn, and Sara Alkhaldi, ‘World Cup Football as a Catalyst
for Change: Exploring the Lives of Women in Qatar’s First National Football
Team—a Case Study,’ The International Journal of the History of Sport 31, no. 14
(2014): 1755–73.
10. ‘Reem,’ working with the national women’s team, interview with the author,
October 2016.

223
pp. [75–78] NOTES
11. All names have been changed for the sake of anonymity. The majority of the inter-
views were carried out in public or semi-private places, and lasted around an hour.
12. Bernard, H. Russell, Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and
Quantitative Approaches, Lanham, MD: Rowman Altamira, 2011.
13. Education City is a campus in Doha, and the site for a number of foreign and local
universities. It is an initiative of the nonprofit, government supported Qatar
Foundation (QF), and includes Hamad bin Khalifa University (HBKU).
14. Asrar, Shakeeb, ‘Education City Student Demographics 2014–15’, The Daily Q,
31 January 2015, www.thedailyq.org/4436/features/education-city-student-demo-
graphics-2014–15/, last accessed 23 January 2019.
15. ‘Amna’, interview with the author, Doha, December 2016.
16. ‘Haya’, interview with the author, Doha, December 2016.
17. She later (by WhatsApp message to the author, December 2016) estimated that
there were around 450 players and referees involved in the Education City female
football teams, and between 300–400 spectators. This number seem too high. The
numbers of players estimated in interviews by the captains of two teams was twenty-
three and eighteen players respectively, and although these are teams from two of
the smaller universities of Education City, they are also well organized, meaning
the total number of players is more likely to be around 100. For the league, teams
can sign up twelve players each although the teams have a larger number of play-
ers coming to practice.
18. See a discussion on this development in Sehlikoglu, Sertaç, ‘Revisited: Muslim
Women’s Agency and Feminist Anthropology of the Middle East’, Contemporary
Islam 1, no. 20 (2017), pp. 73–92.
19. Abu-Lughod, Lila, ‘The Romance of Resistance: Tracing Transformations of Power
through Bedouin Women’, American Ethnologist 17, 1 (1990), pp. 42.
20. Mahmood, Saba, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject
(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005).
21. Sehlikoglu, ‘Revisited: Muslim Women’s Agency.’
22. Bayat, Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East, p. 43.
23. Ibid., p. 17.
24. Ibid., p. 116.
25. Stewart, Kenda R., ‘A Hobby or Hobbling? Playing Palestinian Women’s Soccer
in Israel’, Soccer & Society 13, 5–6 (2012), pp. 739–763.
26. Altorki, Soraya, ‘Some Considerations on the Family in the Arabian Peninsula in
the Late Ottoman and Early Post-Ottoman Period’, in Gulf Women, ed. Amira
El-Azhary Sonbol, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2012.
27. Qatar General Secretariat for Development Planning, Qatar National Development
Strategy, 2011–2016.
28. ‘Maryam’, interview with the author, Doha, November 2016.

224
 NOTES pp. [78–80]

29. An ‘abaya’ is a loose garment worn over clothes, covering the body from the neck
to the ankles and wrists.
30. Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics, Education Statistics Chapter IV,
2016, www.mdps.gov.qa/en/statistics/Statistical%20Releases/Social/Education/
2016/Education_Chapter_4_2016_AE.pdf, last accessed 23 January 2019.
31. Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics, Labor Force Statistics, 2016,
www.mdps.gov.qa/en/statistics/Statistical%20Releases/Social/LaborForce/2016/
Labour_force_2016_AE.pdf, last accessed 23 January 2019.
32. Maktabi, Rania, ‘Female Citizenship and Family Law in Kuwait and Qatar:
Globalization and Pressures for Reform in Two Rentier States’, Nidaba 1, 1 (2016),
pp. 20–34.
33. Ulrichsen, Kristian, Qatar and the Arab Spring, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2014.
34. AFP, ‘Qatar appoints women to Shura council for the first time’, The Peninsula
Qatar, 9 November 2017, www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/09/11/2017/
Qatar-appoints-women-to-Shura-Council-for-first-time, last accessed 23 January
2019.
35. Majālis, plural of majlis, literally ‘a place to sit’, in Gulf culture refers to a place
where people gather, often at someone’s home.
36. Jocelyn Sage Mitchell et al., ‘In Majaalis Al-Hareem: The Complex Professional
and Personal Choices of Qatari Women’, DIFI Family Research and Proceedings 4
(2015), pp. 1–12.
37. Qatar National Vision 2030.
38. Qatar Olympic Committee, ‘Sports Sector Strategy 2011—2016’ (2011), p. 197.
39. Susan Dun, ‘Role Models in the Media and Women’s Sport Participation in Qatar’,
Nidaba 1, 1 (2016), pp. 48–58.
40. Dun, ‘Role Models in the Media and Women’s Sport Participation in Qatar.’
41. None of the women actually qualified for the Olympics, and were thus given this
status by the IOC in order for Qatar to be able to have female representatives at
all.
42. Dun, ‘Role Models in the Media and Women’s Sport Participation in Qatar.’
43. ‘Football History,’ The Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, www.sc.qa/
en/qatar/football-history, last accessed 23 January 2019.
44. ‘About Qatar Stars League,’ Qatar Football Association, 2018, www.qfa.qa, last
accessed 23 January 2019.
45. Ibid.
46. ‘Haya,’ interview with the author, November 2016.
47. ‘Aljohara,’ interview with the author, November 2016.
48. ‘Maryam,’ interview with the author, November 2016.
49. ‘Mohammed,’ interview with the author, November 2016.

225
pp. [80–84] NOTES
50. ‘Reem,’ working with the national women’s team, interview with the author,
October 2016.
51. According to Doha News, citing the QWSC, the first women futsal tournament
took place in 2009 ‘despite cultural resistance’, and the Qatar Women’s Football
League, consisting of 7 teams, were set up in 2012. Doha News Team, ‘Women’s
Football in Qatar Making Strides, but more Young Talent Needed’, Doha News,
25 February 2014, https://dohanews.co/womens-football-in-qatar-making-
strides-but-more-young-talent-needed, last accessed 23 January 2019.
52. ‘Reem’, working with the national women’s team, interview with the author,
October 2016.
53. According to the Ministry of Planning and Statistics, the average monthly income
of a Qatari household is QR 72,715 compared to an average of QR 24,415 for a
non-Qatari household. In addition, Qatari nationals have free water and electric-
ity. See Ministry of Planning and Statistics, ‘Final Results of Household Expenditure
and Income Survey (HEIS)’ (2013), www.mdps.gov.qa/en/statistics/Statistical%20
Releases/Social/HouseholdIncomeAndExpenditure/2013/Household_
Expenditure_2012_2013_Eng.pdf, last accessed 23 January 2019.
54. ‘Roberto’, sports official, interview with the author, November 2016.
55. The women playing for the national team are given provisional passports, called a
‘mission passport’, one that is temporary and taken away after their careers finish.
Besides being counted as Qatari in any football-related situation, the passports
have limited benefits.
56. Geoff Harkness, ‘Out of Bounds: Cultural Barriers to Female Sports Participation
in Qatar’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 29, 15 (2012), pp. 2162–
2183.
57. This difference was pointed out in a number of interviews with different actors
carried out in Doha in the fall of 2016.
58. ‘Haya’, interview with the author, November 2016.
59. ‘Hessa’, interview with the author, Doha, November 2016.
60. Knez et al., ‘World Cup Football as a Catalyst for Change.’
61. Harkness, ‘Out of Bounds: Cultural Barriers to Female Sports Participation in
Qatar.’
62. ‘Aljohara,’ interview with the author, November 2016.
63. Ibid.
64. This statement was repeated in all of my interviews with young Qataris.
65. ‘Aljohara,’ interview with the author, November 2016.
66. Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject, pp. 155–
161.
67. ‘Sheikha,’ interview with the author, 2016.
68. ‘Asian Games: Qatar Women’s Team Pull out over Hijab Ban’, BBC Sport,
26 September 2014, www.bbc.com/sport/basketball/29342986, last accessed
23 January 2019.

226
 NOTES pp. [84–90]

69. ‘Maryam,’ interview with the author, November 2016.

70. ‘Noura,’ interview with the author, October 2016.
71. This was pointed out in several interviews with young women, Doha, October–
December 2016.
72. ‘Aljohara’, interview with the author, November 2016.
73. Būyāt, plural of būya. This word is used in the Gulf countries to describe women
who dress or act in a masculine way. It comes from the English ‘boy’ with the
Arabic suffix–a (tāʾ marbūtta), which is used to make a word feminine. Even though
the word could be translated as ‘tomboy’, it is often used interchangeably with ‘les-
bian’.
74. ‘Alanood’, interview with the author, December 2016.
75. ‘Aljohara,’ interview with the author, November 2016.
76. Amélie Le Renard, A Society of Young Women: Opportunities of Place, Power, and
Reform in Saudi Arabia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), 155.
77. Le Renard, A Society of Young Women: Opportunities of Place, Power, and Reform
in Saudi Arabia, 155.
78. See for example Caudwell, Jayne, ‘Women’s Football in the United Kingdom:
Theorizing Gender and Unpacking the Butch Lesbian Image’ Journal of Sport and
Social Issues 23, 4 (1999), pp. 390–402. Caudwell found that heterosexual women
playing football are sometimes labeled butch or lesbian, which the women in ques-
tion experience as problematic.
79. Stated by several sources, including players, and officials of the universities and the
Supreme Committee.
80. ‘Alanood’, interview with the author, December 2016.
81. ‘Haya’, interview with the author, November 2016.
82. ‘Hessa’, interview with the author, November 2016.
83. ‘Amna’, interview with the author, November 2016.
84. ‘Alanood’, interview with the author, December 2016.
85. Stewart, ‘A Hobby or Hobbling? Playing Palestinian Women’s Soccer in Israel.’
86. ‘Alanood’, interview with the author, December 2016.
87. ‘Hessa’, interview with the author, November 2016.
88. Sobh, Rana and Russell Belk, ‘Domains of Privacy and Hospitality in Arab Gulf
Homes,’ Journal of Islamic Marketing 2, 2 (2011), pp. 125–137.
89. Sobh and Belk, ‘Domains of Privacy and Hospitality in Arab Gulf Homes,’ p. 126.
90. Mitchell et al., ‘In Majaalis Al-Hareem: The Complex Professional and Personal
Choices of Qatari Women.’
91. Bayat, Life as Politics, pp. 116.
92. Lila Abu-Lughod, ‘The Romance of Resistance: Tracing Transformations of Power
through Bedouin Women.’
93. Bayat, Life as Politics, p. 97.
94. ‘Haya’, interview with the author, November 2016.

227
pp. [90–95] NOTES
95. Saba Mahmood, ‘Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent: Some
Reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival’, Cultural Anthropology 16, 2 (2001),
pp. 202–236.
96. ‘Mozah’, interview with the author, November 2016.

5. SPORTSWOMEN’S USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE MIDDLE EAST

AND NORTH AFRICA (MENA)
1. Deborah Lupton, Digital Sociology, (New York, NY: Routledge, 2015), pp. 1–20.
2. Anna Piela, ‘How do Muslim Women who wear the Niqab Interact with Others
Online? A Case Study of a Profile on a Photo-Sharing Website’, New Media &
Society 19, no. 1 (2017), pp. 67–80; Jan H. Kietzmann, Kristopher Hermkens,
Ian P. McCarthy, Bruno S. Silvestre, ‘Social Media? Get Serious! Understanding
the Functional Building Blocks of Social Media’, Business Horizons 54, no. 3 (2011),
pp. 241–251; Lupton, Digital Sociology.
3. Eickelman, Dale F. and Jon W. Anderson, New Media in the Muslim World: The
Emerging Public Sphere, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003, pp. 45–61.
4. Vieweg, Sarah and Adam Hodges, ‘Surveillance & Modesty on Social Media:
How Qataris Navigate Modernity and Maintain Tradition’, (Proceedings of the 19th
ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing,
ACM, San Francisco, CA: ACM, USA, 27 February–2 March 2016.
5. Eickelman and Anderson, New Media; Brown, Sophia, ‘Blogging the Resistance:
Testimony and Solidarity in Egyptian Women’s Blogs’, Contention: The
Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Protest 2, 1 (2014), pp. 41–55; Nouraie-Simone,
Fereshteh, ‘Wings of Freedom: Iranian Women, Identity, and Cyberspace’, in On
Shifting ground: Muslim Women in the Global Era, ed. Fereshteh Nouraie-Simone,
New York, NY: Feminist Press, 2014, pp. 61–79.
6. Piela, ‘Photo-sharing Website New Media’; Vieweg and Hodges, ‘Surveillance &
Modesty.’
7. Nouraie-Simone, ‘Wings of Freedom’; Peila, ‘Photo-sharing website New Media.’
8. Stuart Hall, ‘Introduction: Who Needs ‘Identity’?’ in Questions of Cultural Identity,
ed. Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay, London: SAGE Publication, 1996, pp. 1–17.
9. Hall, ‘Introduction,’ p. 4.
10. Ibid.
11. Ahmed, Sara, Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality, London:
Routledge, 2000; Kassam, Shelina ‘Marketing an Imagined Muslim Woman:
Muslim Girl Magazine and the Politics of Race, Gender and Representation,’ Social
Identities 17, 4 (2011), pp. 543–64.
12. Geurin-Eagleman, Andrea N. and Lauren M. Burch, ‘Communicating via
Photographs: A Gendered Analysis of Olympic Athletes’ Visual Self-presentation
on Instagram’, Sport Management Review 19, 2 (2016), pp. 133–45; Toffoletti,
Kim and Holly Thorpe, ‘Female Athletes’ Self-representation on Social Media:

228
 NOTES pp. [95–97]

A Feminist Analysis of Neoliberal Marketing Strategies in ‘Economies of

Visibility’, Feminism and Psychology 28, 1 (2018), pp. 11–31; Chawansky, Megan
‘Be Who You are and be Proud: Brittney Griner, Intersectional Invisibility and
Digital Possibilities for Lesbian Sporting Celebrity’, Leisure Studies 35, 6 (2016),
pp. 771–82.
13. Murthy, Dhiraj ‘Emergent Digital Ethnographic Methods for Social Research’, in
Handbook of Emergent Technologies in Social Research, ed. Sharlene Nagy Hesse-
Biber, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 158–79.
14. Interviews lasted from one to three hours, with most conducted via digital plat-
forms like Skype, Zoom, and Google Hangouts. Interviews were conducted from
New Zealand, where I am based.
15. Denzin, Norman K. ‘Cybertalk and the Method of Instances’, in Doing Internet
Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net, ed. Steve G. Jones,
Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 1999, pp. 107–26.
16. Markham, Annette N. ‘Fieldwork in Social Media’, Qualitative Communication
Research 2, 4 (2013) pp. 434–46; Wittkower, Dyan Eric, ‘Lurkers, Creepers, and
Virtuous Interactivity: From Property Rights to Consent and Care as a Conceptual
Basis for Privacy Concerns and Information Ethics’, First Monday 21, 10 (2016),
online only.
17. Ellison, Nicole B. and Danah M. Boyd, ‘Sociality through Social Network Sites’,
in The Oxford Handbook of Internet Studies, ed. William H. Dutton, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 158–80.
18. Ellison and Boyd, ‘Sociality through Social Network Sites.’
19. Radcliffe, Damian ‘Social Media in the Middle East: The Story of 2016’, December
2016, https://damianradcliffe.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/social-media-in-the-
middle-east-the-story-of-2016-final.pdf, last accessed 21 January 2019.
20. Lupton, Digital Sociology.
21. ‘Arab Youth Media Initiative Launched’, Ministry of Cabinet Affairs and the Future,
1 March 2017, www.mocaf.gov.ae/en/media/news/arab-youth-media-initiative-
launched, last accessed 21 January 2016.
22. Howard, Philip N., Aiden Duffy, Deen Freelon, Muzammil M. Hussain, Will
Mari, and Marwa Maziad. ‘Opening Closed Regimes: What Was the Role of Social
Media during the Arab Spring?’ Project on Information Technology & Political
Islam (PITPI), Working Paper, (2011).
23. Brown, ‘Blogs Contention;’ Nouraie-Simone, ‘Wings of Freedom’; Mohamed
Zayani and Suzi Mirgani, eds. Bullets and Bulletins: Media and Politics in the Wake
of the Arab Uprisings. Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2016.
24. Hilleary, Cecily ‘Tunisian Blogger Undeterred by Censorship’, VOA, 4 January
2011, www.voanews.com/content/tunisian-blogger-undeterred-by-censorship-
112948869/157156.html, last accessed 21 January 2019.
25. Brown, ‘Blogs Contention.’
26. Nouraie-Simone, ‘Wings of Freedom.’

229
pp. [97–99] NOTES
27. Ibid.
28. Brown, ‘Blogging the Resistance.’
29. Prodanovic, Branka and Susie Khamis, ‘Representing the Veil in Contemporary
Australian Media’, in The Routledge International Handbook to Veils and Veiling,
ed. Anna-Mari Almila and David Inglish, Oxford: Routledge, 2017, pp. 125–35.
30. Heinecken, Dawn ‘“So Tight in the Thighs, So Loose in the Waist”: Embodying
the Female Athlete Online’, Feminist Media Studies 15, 6 (2015), pp. 1035–52;
Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, ‘Self-presentation on Instagram’; Clavio, Glen
‘Emerging Social Media and Applications in Sport’, in Routledge Handbook of Sport
Communication, ed. Paul M. Pedersen, New York, NY: Routledge, 2013, pp. 259–
69; Thorpe, Holly ‘Action Sports, Social Media, and New Technologies Towards
a Research Agenda’, Communication & Sport 5, 5 (2016), pp. 554–578; Sanderson,
Jimmy, ‘Facebook, Twitter, and Sports Fans: Identity Protection and Social
Network Sites in US Sports’, in Digital Media Sport: Technology, Power, and Identity
in the Network Society, ed. Brett Hutchins and David Rowe, New York, NY:
Routledge, 2013, pp. 124–38; Sanderson, Jimmy ‘What do we do with Twitter?’
Communication & Sport 2, 2 (2014), pp. 127–31; Olive, Rebecca ‘Reframing
Surfing: Physical Culture in Online Spaces’, Media International Australia 155, 1
(2015), pp. 99–107; Toffoletti and Thorpe, ‘Economics of Visibility.’
31. Filo, Kevin, Daniel Lock, and Adam Karg, ‘Sport and Social Media Research: A
Review’, Sport Management Review 18, 2 (2015), pp. 166–81; Ballouli, Khalil,
and Michael Hutchinson, ‘Digital-Branding and Social-Media Strategies for
Professional Athletes, Sports Teams, and Leagues: An Interview with Digital
Royalty’s Amy Martin’, International Journal of Sport Communication 3, 4 (2010),
pp. 395–401; Chawansky, ‘Sporting Celebrity’; Antunovic, Dunja and Marie
Hardin, ‘Activism in Women’s Sports Blogs: Fandom and Feminist Potential’,
International Journal of Sport Communication 5, 3 (2012), pp. 305–22; Geurin-
Eagleman and Burch, ‘Self-Presentation on Instagram’; Weathers, Melina et al.,
‘The Tweet Life of Erin and Kirk: A Gendered Analysis of Professional Sports
Broadcasters’ Self-presentation on Twitter’, Journal of Sports Media 9, 2 (2014),
pp: 1–24; Toffoletti and Thorpe, ‘Economics of Visibility’.
32. Kietzmann et al., ‘Social Media’.
33. Gilchrist, Paul and Belinda Wheaton, ‘New Media Technologies in Lifestyle Sport’,
in Digital Media Sport: Technology, Power and Culture in the Network Society, ed.
Brett Hutchins and David Rowe, New York, NY: Routledge, 2013, pp. 169–85.
34. Antunovic and Hardin, ‘Feminist Potential’; Sanderson, Jimmy, and Kelly
Gramlich, ‘“You Go Girl!”’: Twitter and Conversations about Sport Culture and
Gender’, Sociology of Sport Journal 33, 2 (2016), pp. 113–23; M. LaVoi, Nicole
and Austin S. Calhoun, ‘Digital Media and Women’s Sport: An Old View on
“New” Media?’ in Handbook of Sport and New Media, ed. Andrew C. Billings and
Marie Hardin, New York, NY: Routledge, 2014, pp. 320–30; Sanderson,
‘Facebook, Twitter, and Sports Fans’; Sanderson, ‘What do we do with Twitter?’

230
 NOTES pp. [99–102]

35. Piela, Anna, ‘Challenging Stereotypes: Muslim Women’s Photographic Self-

representations on the Internet’, Online-Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the
Internet 4, 1 (2010), pp. 87–110; Gilchrist and Wheaton, ‘New Media’, 169–85;
Bonilla, Yarimar, and Jonathan Rosa, ‘#Ferguson: Digital Protest, Hashtag
Ethnography, and the Racial Politics of Social Media in the United States’, American
Ethnologist 42, 1 (2015), pp. 4–17.
36. Brown, ‘Blogs Contention;’ Nouraie-Simone, ‘Wings of Freedom.’
37. Bonilla and Rosa, ‘#Ferguson;’ Gilchrist and Wheaton, ‘New Media;’ Piela,
‘Challenging Stereotypes.’
38. Messner, Michael A., Margaret Carlisle Duncan, and Cheryl Cooky, ‘Silence,
Sports Bras, and Wrestling Porn: Women in Televised Sports News and Highlights
Shows’, Journal of Sport and Social Issues 27, 1 (2003), pp. 38–51.
39. Dumont, ‘Rock Climbing’, p. 2.
40. Interview was conducted online via Zoom on 29 March 2017, and it was con-
ducted in English.
41. Hashtags (#) aid in organizing events, controlling communication through the
use of a specific word along with the (#) symbol. This helps to amplify a cause and
reach large audiences: Nathan Gilkerson and Kati Tusinski, ‘Social Media, Hashtag
Hijacking, and the Evolution of an Activist Group Strategy’, in Social Media and
Crisis Communication, ed. Lucinda L. Austin, New York: Taylor & Francis, 2017,
pp. 141–54.
42. An individual who is able to create compelling content through social media,
allowing audience members or fans to respond, engage or get information.
43. Arai, Akiko, Yong Jae Ko, and Stephen Ross, ‘Branding Athletes: Exploration and
Conceptualization of Athlete Brand Image’, Sport Management Review 17, 2
(2014), pp. 97–106; Dumont, Guillaume ‘The Beautiful and the Damned: The
Work of New Media Production in Professional Rock Climbing’, Journal of Sport
and Social Issues 41, 2 (2017), pp. 99–117; Hambrick, Marion E. and Sun J. Kang,
‘Pin it: Exploring how Professional Sports Organizations Use Pinterest as a
Communications and Relationship-Marketing Tool’, Communication & Sport 3,
4 (2015), pp. 434–57.
44. Arai, Jae Ko, Stephen Ross, ‘Branding Athletes.’
45. Instagram, ‘Instagram Statistics’, 2017, www.instagram.com/press, last accessed
21 Jan 2019.
46. Eagleman, Andrea N. ‘Acceptance, Motivations, and Usage of Social Media as a
Marketing Communications Tool amongst Employees of Sport National
Governing Bodies’, Sport Management Review 16, 4 (2013), pp. 488–97.
47. Interview conducted online via Zoom on 30 April 2017, in English.
48. Action sports refers to surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, BMX-riding, climb-
ing, and mountain biking; Thorpe, ‘Action Sports’, p. 559.
49. This quote was edited for clarity.
50. Coche, Roxane, ‘How Golfers and Tennis Players Frame Themselves: A Content

231
pp. [102–107] NOTES
Analysis of Twitter Profile Pictures’, Journal of Sports Media 9, 1 (2014), pp. 95–121;
Toffoletti and Thorpe, ‘Economics of Visibility’.
51. Gill, Rosalind ‘Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility’, European
Journal of Cultural Studies 10, 2 (2007), pp. 147–166.
52. Banet-Weiser, Sarah ‘“Confidence you can Carry!”: Girls in Crisis and the Market
for Girls’ Empowerment Organizations’, Continuum 29, 2 (2015), pp. 182–93.
53. Sanderson, Jimmy, ‘The Blog is Serving its Purpose: Self-Presentation Strategies
on 38pitches.com’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13, 4 (2008),
pp. 912–36; Lebel, Katie and Karen Danylchuk, ‘How Tweet it is: A Gendered
Analysis of Professional Tennis Players’ Self-presentation on Twitter’, International
Journal of Sport Communication 5, 4 (2012), pp. 461–80.
54. Hambrick and Kang, ‘Pin it.’
55. Rose, Jessica, et al., ‘Face it: The Impact of Gender on Social Media Images’,
Communication Quarterly 60, 5 (2012), pp. 588–607.
56. Toffoletti and Thorpe, ‘Economics of Visibility’.
57. Sanderson, ‘The Blog is Serving its Purpose’.
58. Farooq Samie, Sumaya and Sertaç Sehlikoglu, ‘Strange, Incompetent and Out-Of-
Place: Media, Muslim Sportswomen and London 2012’, Feminist Media Studies
15, 3 (2015), pp. 363–81; Benn, Tansin, Gertrud Pfister, and Haifaa Jawad, Muslim
Women and Sport, New York: Routledge, 2010; Benn, Tansin and Symeon Dagkas,
‘The Olympic Movement and Islamic Culture: Conflict or Compromise for
Muslim Women?’ International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 5, 2 (2013),
pp. 281–94.
59. Trolan, Eoin J. ‘The Impact of the Media on Gender Inequality within Sport’,
Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 91 (2013), pp. 215–27.
60. LaVoi and Calhoun, ‘Digital Media and Women’s Sport’; Sanderson and Gramlich,
‘You Go Girl!’; Sanderson, ‘Facebook, Twitter, and Sports Fans’; Sanderson, ‘What
do we do with Twitter?’
61. Hambrick and Kang, ‘Pin it’.
62. Sanderson, ‘The Blog is Serving its Purpose’.
63. ‘Saudi Woman who Climbed Everest tells Countrywomen: Challenge Yourselves’,
The Raw Story, 27 May 2013, www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/27/saudi-woman-
who-climbed-everest-tells-countrywomen-challenge-yourselves/, last accessed
21 Jan 2019.
64. Toffoletti and Thorpe, ‘Economics of Visibility.’
65. Benn and Dagkas, ‘The Olympic Movement and Islamic Culture’; Samie and
Sehlikoglu, ‘Strange, Incompetent and Out-Of-Place.’

6. THE WORLD CUP AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN QATAR

1. The Gulf Cooperation Council states are Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The GCC was founded in 1981.

232
 NOTES pp. [107–110]

2. See Reiche, Danyel, ‘Investing in Sporting Success as a Domestic and Foreign Policy
Tool: The Case of Qatar’, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 7, 4 (2015),
pp. 489–504; and Mahfoud Amara, ‘The Pillars of Qatar’s International Sport
Strategy’, E-International Relations, 29 November 2013, www.e-ir.info/2013/11/29/
the-pillars-of-qatars-international-sport-strategy/, last accessed 23 January 2019.
3. See Liam Morgan, ‘Qatar to Host almost 90 Major Sporting Events this Year,
Olympic Committee Reveals,’ Inside the Games, 20 April 2015, www.insidethe-
games.biz/articles/1026862/qatar-to-host-89-major-sporting-events-this-year-qoc-
reveals, last accessed 23 January 2019.
4. ‘Qatar Accused of Blocking Doha News Website,’ BBC News, 1 December 2016,
www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38169032, last accessed 23 January 2019.
Shortly after the 2017 blockade began, VoiP services (Skype, WhatsApp, etc.) in
Qatar were also interrupted.
5. For context, the media in all the countries of the Arab peninsula rate as unfree on
all three of the major international media freedom indices (explained in more detail
later in the paper). Importantly, the indices have reported steady declines in media
freedom everywhere in the world for more than a decade now, including in the
United States and Western Europe. Qatar’s decline was due in part to its blocking
of the Doha News, an online news site without the required publication license.
6. ‘Recommendations of the International Conference, “Freedom of Expression, Facing
up to the Threat,”’ 24–25 July 2017, Doha, Qatar, www.fnsi.it/upload/9b/9bf31c
7ff062936a96d3c8bd1f8f2ff3/06f90f53aa785615e1729b2dea077256.pdf, last
accessed 23 January 2019.
7. The Foreign Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, spoke at
Chatham House on the blockade in July 2017; ‘The Crisis in the Gulf: Qatar
Responds’, Chatham House, 5 July 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ksR1
C8B2HA, last accessed 23 January 2019.
8. ‘Qatar’s Emir Stands Defiant in Face of Blockade,’ CBS News, 29 October 2017,
www.cbsnews.com/news/qatars-emir-stands-defiant-in-face-of-blockade/, last
accessed 23 January 2019.
9. There is a long history of researchers attempting to measure press freedom using
quantifiable measures, and today there are at least three internationally known indi-
ces that rate and compare national media systems and, explicitly or implicitly, their
degree of freedom. The oldest is the annual ‘Survey of Press Freedom’ done by the
British NGO Freedom House, which includes rankings for almost all of the world’s
countries; the second is a ‘Media Sustainability Index’ (MSI) created jointly by the
US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the International Research
Exchange Board (IREX) in 2000; and a third, more recent entry to the field, is the
‘Press Freedom Index’ from the French NGO Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Each
has over time developed substantial resources and sophisticated measures, but each
also relies on values that are, if not subjective, at least not universal even in estab-
lished democracies.

233
pp. [110–111] NOTES
10. On the topic of media freedom measures, see generally Price, Monroe, Susan
Abbott and Libby Morgan, eds., Measures of Press Freedom and Media Contributions
to Development: Evaluating the Evaluators, New York: Peter Lang, 2011; and
LaMay, Craig, Exporting Press Freedom: Economic Dilemmas in Media Assistance,
New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2007.
11. Few sources in Qatar, when talking about sensitive issues, are willing to be identi-
fied or quoted. Another sourcing problem to note is that the news reports cited
in this paper are primarily from Western news organizations, not Qatari ones,
because Qatari newspapers do not make archives available online except as indi-
vidual copies in PDF format that are searchable only within each issue. While
Qatari newspapers sometimes do carry critical stories about the country, they are
usually from Western news sources.
12. Brannagan, Paul and Richard Giulianotti, ‘Soft Power and Soft Disempowerment:
Qatar, Global Sport and Football’s 2022 World Cup Finals,’ Leisure Studies 34, 6
(2014), pp. 707.
13. The term ‘mega-event’ has several similar definitions in economics literature, but
a widely accepted one comes from Maurice Roche, who describes them as ‘large-
scale cultural events which have dramatic character, mass popular appeal and inter-
national significance.’ The two key characteristics of the modern mega-events are
that they leave a ‘legacy’ for the host city, region or country where they occur; and
that they receive global media coverage. See Roche, Maurice, Mega-events and
Modernity, London: Routledge, 2000; and Roberts, Kenneth, The Leisure
Industries, London: Palgrave, 2004. On Qatar and the legacies of its sports tour-
ism strategy, see Grichting, Anna, ‘Scales of Flows: Qatar and the Urban Legacies
of Mega Events’, International Journal of Architecture and Urban Planning 7, 2
( July 2013), pp. 173–91.
14. Nye, Joseph, ‘Soft Power and American Foreign Policy’, Political Science Quarterly
119, 2 (2004), pp. 256.
15. See Amara, Mahfoud, ‘2006 Qatar Asian Games: A “Modernization” Project from
Above?’ Sport in Society 8, 3 (2005), pp. 493–514.
16. According to FIFA, 3.2 billion people watched some part of the 2014 World Cup
in Brazil, and almost a billion watched some part of the final. See FIFA’s ‘2014
FIFA World Cup Brazil: Television Audience Report’, Fédération Internationale
de Football Association (FIFA), https://resources.fifa.com/mm/document/affed-
eration/tv/02/74/55/57/2014fwcbraziltvaudiencereport(draft5)(issue-
date14.12.15)_neutral.pdf, last accessed 23 January 2019.
17. Brannagan and Giulianotti, ‘Soft power and Soft Disempowerment,’ p. 707.
18. Higham, James, ‘Commentary-Sport as an Avenue of Tourism Development: An
Approach to Qatar and Abu Dhabi’, African Journal of Business Management 5
(2011), p. 84.
19. As part of Qatar’s sports strategy, it has made major investments in European sports

234
 NOTES pp. [111–112]

facilities and football clubs; hosted dozens of international sporting events and
sport conferences; and bid to become a significant voice in international sport
governance.
20. Scott, Matt, ‘Millions Paid in Bribes for Qatar’s 2022 World Cup, Report Claims’,
The Guardian, 10 May 2011, www.theguardian.com/football/2011/may/10/mil-
lions-bribes-qatar-2022-world-cup-claims, last accessed 23 January 2019.
21. Sam Borden, ‘FIFA Confirms Winter World Cup for 2022’, New York Times,
19 March 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/sports/soccer/fifa-confirms-
winter-world-cup-for-2022.html, last accessed 23 January 2019; Jacob Murtagh,
‘What Will Qatar Winter World Cup Mean for the Premier League, Transfer
Window and Players?’ Mirror, 25 September 2015, www.mirror.co.uk/sport/foot-
ball/news/what-qatar-winter-world-cup-6514982, last accessed 23 January 2019.
22. ‘Court hears how Senior FIFA Exec took Bribes to back Qatar’s World Cup Bid’,
Sport Business, 15 November 2017, www.sportbusiness.com/sport-news/court-
hears-how-senior-fifa-exec-took-bribes-back-qatar%E2%80%99s-world-cup-
bid?0=ip_login_no_cache%3Ddf847e41037bc13c856e6bcfc72e115a, last
accessed 23 January 2019.
23. Rivenburgh, Nancy K., ‘The Olympic Games, Media and the Challenges of Global
Image Making’, paper presentation, Centre d’Estudis Olimpics, International Chair
in Olympism, Barcelona, Spain, 2004, http://ceo.uab.cat/download/rivenburgh_
eng.pdf, last accessed 23 January 2019.
24. See Kuper, Simon, ‘Soccer’s Culture of Corruption’, New York Review of Books,
28 September 2017, www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/09/28/soccers-culture-of-
corruption/, last accessed 23 January 2019.
25. See Garcia, Michael J., Report on the Inquiry into the 2018/2022 World Cup Bidding
Process, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), 2014, http://
resources.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/footballgover-
nance/02/89/87/97/aus_bel-ned_eng_esp-por_jpn_kor_qat_report_neutral.
pdf, last accessed 23 January 2019. The ‘Garcia Report’ by American federal judge
Michael Garcia, is the FIFA examination of its own bidding process, only portions
of which were released before 2017, when the full report was leaked to the German
newspaper Bild.
26. ‘US Jury Convicts Two FIFA Soccer Bosses in Corruption Trial’, Deutsche Welle.
com, 23 December 2017, www.dw.com/en/us-jury-convicts-two-fifa-soccer-bosses-
in-corruption-trial/a-41913989, last accessed 23 January 2019.
27. Ruggie, John J., ‘For the Game. For the World: FIFA & Human Rights’, April 2016,
www.sportandhumanrights.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/
Ruggie_human-rights_FIFA_report_April_2016.pdf, last accessed 23 January
2019.
28. Dorsey, James M., ‘Qatar’s World Cup Sparks Battle for Legal, Social and Political
Reform,’ in The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 25 January 2017, http://

235
pp. [112–113] NOTES
mideastsoccer.blogspot.com/2017/01/qatars-world-cup-sparks-battle-for.html,
last accessed 23 January 2019.
29. Lobel, Mark, ‘Arrested for Reporting on Qatar’s World Cup Labourers’, BBC News,
18 May 2015, www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32775563, last accessed
23 January 2019; ‘Qatar Detains International Journalists for the Second Time
this Year’, Committee to Protect Journalists, 18 May 2015, https://cpj.
org/2015/05/qatar-detains-international-journalists-for-the-se.php, last accessed
23 January 2019.
30. Allison, Lincoln and Alan Tomlinson, Understanding International Sport
Organizations: Principles, Power and Possibilities, London: Routledge, 2017, p. xii.
31. Cottrell, M. Patrick and Travis Nelson, ‘Not Just the Games? Power, Protest and
Politics at the Olympics’, European Journal of International Relations 17, 4 (2011),
pp. 729–53.
32. Corrarino, Megan, ‘“Law Exclusion Zones”: Mega-events as Sites of Procedural
and Substantive Human Rights Violations’, Yale Human Rights & Development
Law Journal 17 (2014), pp. 180–204.
33. ‘Olympic Charter’, International Olympic Committee, September 2015, https://
stillmed.olympic.org/Documents/olympic_charter_en.pdf, last accessed 23 Jan­
uary 2019.
34. Owen Gibson, ‘Olympic Anti-discrimination Clause Introduced after Sochi Gay
Rights Row,’ The Guardian, 25 September 2014, www.theguardian.com/
sport/2014/sep/25/olympic-anti-discrimination-clause-sochi-gay-rights-row, last
accessed 29 January 2019.
35. ‘IOC and UN Secretariat Agree Historic Deal to Work Together to Use Sport to
Build a Better World,’ Olympic.org, 28 April 2014, at www.olympic.org/news/
ioc-and-un-secretariat-agree-historic-deal/230542, last accessed 23 January 2019.
36. Historically, sporting mega-events have featured several moments that have
cemented their link to human rights promotion: Jesse Owen’s victories in 1936 at
the summer Olympic Games in Berlin; the medal-stand salute and protests of
Americans John Carlos and Tommy Smith, and Australian Peter Norman, at the
1968 Mexico City games; the promotion of Aboriginal rights by Australian Cathy
Freeman at the 2000 Sydney Olympics; and, most recently, the participation of
women athletes from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei at the 2012 London
Olympics.
37. Article 4, FIFA Statutes, April 2016 edition, http://resources.fifa.com/mm/doc-
ument/affederation/generic/02/78/29/07/fifastatutsweben_neutral.pdf, last
accessed 23 January 2019.
38. ‘Our Strategy,’ Fédération Internationale de Football Association, 2018, www.fifa.
com/about-fifa/who-we-are/explore-fifa.html, last accessed 29 January 2019.
39. Paul Doyle, ‘How football can help bring new hope to a neglected region of
Uganda’, The Guardian, 30 April 2019, www.theguardian.com/katine/2009/
may/01/football.

236
 NOTES pp. [113–114]

40. Ruggie, For the Game. Ruggie’s recommendations for, among other things, a per-
manent human rights advisory board within FIFA to meet twice a year and to
monitor bids and contracts, were adapted later the same year in a new FIFA mis-
sion document, ‘FIFA 2.0: The Vision for the Future,’ 13 October 2016, http://
resources.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/generic/02/84/35/01/
FIFA_2.0_Vision_LOW_neu.17102016_Neutral.pdf, last accessed 23 January
2019. The advisory board met for the first time in March 2017. The Ruggie Report
also raised human rights concerns about Russia, host of the 2018 World Cup, and
Papua New Guinea, host of the 2016 Under-20 Women’s World Cup. Ruggie’s
report came a year after another internal investigation into FIFA ethics violations
in the 2018 and 2022 bidding processes by Michael Garcia, a former U.S. Attorney.
The FIFA Ethics Committee refused to release the full report, leading Garcia to
resign his position in protest. While the Garcia report contained no new revela-
tions, it is not correct to say, as some sources do, that Qatar was ‘cleared’ of allega-
tions of bribery in relation to its World Cup bid.
41. Perlman, Matthew, ‘FIFA Report Offers Ways Group Can Protect Human Rights’,
Law360, 14 April 2016, www.law360.com/articles/784594/fifa-report-offers-
ways-group-can-protect-human-rights, last accessed 23 January 2019.
42. An ‘illiberal’ country, to borrow from journalist Fareed Zakaria, is one that rou-
tinely fails to hold free and fair elections; that lacks rule of law; that represses polit-
ical opposition; and that fails to protect basic liberties of speech, press, assembly,
religion and property. Obviously, the extent to which any country is illiberal is a
matter of degree depending on how one scores these measures. See Fareed Zakaria,
‘The Rise of Illiberal Democracy’, Foreign Affairs 76, 6 (1997), pp. 22–43.
43. See Kilgore, Adam, ‘Want to Host the Olympics? Most Western Cities Would
Rather Not’, Washington Post, 29 July 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/sports/
olympics/for-citizens-in-many-locales-hosting-games-no-longer-has-same-ring-
to-it/2015/07/29/10ac4c12–355a-11e5–94ce-834ad8f5c50e_story.html?utm_
term=.6d6bd96b77ee, last accessed 23 January 2019; Abend, Lisa, ‘Why Nobody
Wants to Host the 2022 Winter Olympics’, Time, 3 October 2014, http://time.
com/3462070/olympics-winter-2022/, last accessed 23 January 2019; and
Morgan, Liam, ‘Budapest Withdrawal Deals Blow to IOC and Casts Further
Doubt over Agenda 2020’, Inside the Games, 25 February 2017, www.insidethe-
games.biz/articles/1047470/liam-morgan-budpest-withdrawal-deals-blow-to-
ioc-and-casts-further-doubt-over-agenda-2020, last accessed 23 January 2019.
44. Worden, Minky, ‘Human Rights and the 2022 Olympics’, New York Times,
18 January 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/opinion/human-rights-and-
the-2022-olympics.html, last accessed 23 January 2019.
45. See Zimbalist, Andrew, Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting
the Olympics and the World Cup, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press,
2016; Mehrotra, Anita, ‘To Host or Not to Host?’ A Comparison Study on the

237
pp. [114–115] NOTES
Long-run Impact of the Olympic Games’, Michigan Journal of Business 5, 2 (2012),
pp. 62–92.
46. See for example Nauright, John, ‘Selling Nations to the World through Sports:
Mega-events and Nation Branding as Global Diplomacy’, Public Diplomacy
Magazine, Winter 2013, http://publicdiplomacymagazine.com/wp-content/
uploads/2013/02/Selling-nationS-to-the-World-through-SportS-Mega-eventS-
and-nation-Branding-aS-gloBal-diploMacy.pdf, last accessed 23 January 2019.
47. See, for example, ‘Games That Must Stop: Major International Sporting Events
Must not Become the Preserve of Autocrats,’ The Economist, 26 February 2015,
www.economist.com/news/leaders/21645194-major-international-sporting-
events-must-not-become-preserve-autocrats-games-must; Suzanne Nossel, ‘Faster,
Higher, More Oppressive: International Mega-sporting Events like the Olympics
Have Become the Playthings of Authoritarian Regimes,’ Foreign Policy, 19 May
2015, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/19/faster-higher-more-oppressive-
olympics-world-cup-russia-qatar/; Jonathan Grix, ‘Sport, Politics and the
Olympics,’ Political Studies Review 11, no. 1 ( January 2013): 15–25; and Alexander
Lord, ‘A Game Changer; Mega-sporting Events, Illiberal Regimes, and Political
Liberalization’ (master’s thesis, City University of New York, 2014), academic-
works.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/304.
48. Consider that the IOC had 207 member countries, FIFA has 210, and the United
Nations 193 in February 2018. Excluding the IOC and FIFA, a conservative num-
ber of ISNGOs in the world is about 213—because no sport is a sport without an
international governing body—most of which are under the aegis of the IOC. A
complete list of summer and winter sport federations is at www.olympic.org/ioc-
governance-international-sports-federations, last accessed 23 January 2019.
Through its relationships with the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) and
the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the IOC essentially claims authority
over all sport, everywhere.
49. See Allison and Tomlinson, Understanding International Sport Organizations,
2017.
50. ‘Soccer: Less Democracy Makes for an Easier World Cup—Valcke’, Reuters,
24 April 2013, www.reuters.com/article/us-soccer-fifa-idUSBRE93N18F201
30424; see also ‘Too Much Democracy—FIFA’s Valcke’, BBC Sport, 24 April 2013,
www.bbc.com/sport/football/22288688.
51. Neither the IOC nor FIFA—nor indeed any international sports governing body—
maintains any US-based operations, in order to avoid US law. FIFA’s criminal
problems in the US arose as a result of a single person in the FIFA chain who failed
to report taxable income.
52. Zaggar, Zachary, ‘Panama Papers Breathe New Life into FIFA Corruption Scandal’,
Law360, 7 April 2016, www.law360.com/articles/781948/panama-papers-
breathe-new-life-into-fifa-corruption-scandal, last accessed 23 January 2019.

238
 NOTES pp. [115–116]

53. Jefferson Lenskyj, Helen, ‘The Olympic Industry and Civil Liberties: The Threat
to Free Speech and Freedom of Assembly’, in Sport, Civil Liberties and Human
Rights, eds., David Giulianotti and David McArdle, New York: Routledge, 2006,
pp. 78–92. See also Marthoz, Jean-Paul, ‘Mega-Events, Mega Media Restrictions’,
speech at Play the Game, Aarhus, 30 October 2013, www.playthegame.org/filead-
min/image/PtG2013/Presentations/30_October_Wednesday/Jean-Paul_
Marthoz_30_okt.pdf, last accessed 23 January 2019.
54. The IOC, for example, launched a streaming channel in 2014, and in 2017
launched a broadcast channel in partnership with NBCUniversal. In the United
States, Europe, East Asia and Australia, virtually all major sports leagues now have
both streaming and broadcast channels.
55. Digital media have also changed the job of sports reporters. They are now less in
the business of breaking stories and more in the business of verifying and contex-
tualizing stories generated by non-journalists—fans and athletes. Journalists also
use social media—Twitter primarily—to break news, promote their own work,
and connect to audiences. But the live audience can also break news, and the trend
of social media conversation can quickly and dramatically change the mainstream
media narrative around any sporting event.
56. IOC Article 48, bylaw 3: 93, https://stillmed.olympic.org/Documents/olympic_
charter_en.pdf, last accessed 23 January 2019.
57. IOC Article 50, bylaw 2: 94.
58. Claire Stocks, ‘Beijing Olympics pose internet challenges’, BBC Sport, 3 April 2008,
www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/sporteditors/2008/04/why_the_beijing_olympics_chall.
html.
59. ‘Accredited persons’ in the IOC guidelines include ‘all athletes, coaches, officials,
personnel of the National Olympic Committees and of International Federations
and members of accredited media.’ The IOC has no guidelines for non-accred-
ited media, which instead get accreditation from the host city or country.
60. According to the guidelines, ‘Only the persons who are accredited as media may
act as journalists, reporters or in any other media capacity while they are at the
Games.’ IOC Social and Digital Media Guidelines for Persons Accredited to the
Games of the XXXI Olympiad Rio 2016, International Olympic Committee,
October 2015, https://stillmed.olympic.org/media/Document%20Library/
OlympicOrg/Documents/Games-Rio-2016-Olympic-Games/Social-Media-
Blogging-Internet-Guidelines-and-News-Access-Rules/IOC-Social-and-Digital-
Media-Guidelines-Rio-2016.pdf, last accessed 23 January 2019.
61. See Rowe, David, ‘Sport, Sochi and the Rising Challenge of the Activist Athlete’,
The Conversation, 5 February 2014, http://theconversation.com/sport-sochi-and-
the-rising-challenge-of-the-activist-athlete-22491, last accessed 23 January 2019.
62. See, for example, Chadwick, Simon, ‘Euro 2016 Sponsors Being Ambushed on
Social Media by ‘Unofficial’ Brands,’ The Conversation, 1 July 2016, http://the-

239
pp. [117–118] NOTES
conversation.com/euro-2016-sponsors-being-ambushed-on-social-media-by-unof-
ficial-brands-61880, last accessed 23 January 2019; and Pathak, Shareen, ‘Activist
Athletes Pose an “Unprecedented” Threat to Sponsor Brands’, Digiday, 13 February
2017, https://digiday.com/marketing/activist-athletes-pose-unprecedented-
threat-sponsor-brands/, last accessed 23 January 2019.
63. In 2009, a dispute arose in Australia over the rights to cricket video that entangled
the Australian Cricket Council, several news organizations, mobile and internet
companies, and fans. The controversy became the focus of a national election and
resulted in a formal government inquiry that ended with the investigating parlia-
mentary committee recommending the parties sue one another.
64. John Ruggie, quoted in Pearlman, Matthew, ‘FIFA Report Offers Ways Group
Can Protect Human Rights’, Law360, 14 April 2016, www.law360.com/arti-
cles/784594/fifa-report-offers-ways-group-can-protect-human-rights, last accessed
23 January 2019.
65. See Reiche, ‘Investing in Sporting Success as a Domestic and Foreign Policy Tool:
The Case of Qatar.’
66. There are exceptions to this openness. The Qatar Radio and Television Corporation
and customs officials censor both domestic and foreign print and broadcast media
for religious, political and sexual content. Online content is reviewed and blocked
in the same way by the country’s sole internet service provider, state-owned Qtel.
See Media Use in the Middle East 2016: A Six-Nation Survey, Northwestern
University in Qatar, Doha: 2016, www.qatar.northwestern.edu/docs/publica-
tions/research-media-use/2016-middle-east-media-use-report.pdf, last accessed
23 January 2019.
67. ‘Homepage,’ Josoor Institute, www.josoorinstitute.qa, last accessed 23 January
2019.
68. Constitution of Qatar 2004, Article 47, http://portal.www.gov.qa/wps/
portal/!ut/p/a0/04_Sj9CPykssy0xPLMnMz0vMAfGjzOIt_S2cDS0sDNwtQg
KcDTyNfAOcLD3cDdw9zf ULsh0VAQl92_s!/, last accessed 23 January 2019.
69. ‘World Press Freedom Index, Qatar, 2017’, Qatar, Reporters San Frontières, https://
rsf.org/en/qatar, last accessed 23 January 2019; see also ‘Freedom of the Press
2016, Qatar’, Freedom House, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-
press/2016/qatar, last accessed 23 January 2019.
70. ‘Freedom of the Press 2011 Qatar’, Freedom House, https://freedomhouse.org/
sites/default/files/FOTP%202011%20Final%20Full%20Report.pdf, pp. 249.
71. Lambert, Jennifer, ‘Qatari Law Will Test Media Freedom’, Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, 1 December 2010, http://carnegieendowment.org/
sada/42049, last accessed 23 January 2019.
72. Duffy, Matt, Media Laws and Regulations of the GCC Countries: Summary, Analysis
and Recommendations, Doha Centre for Media Freedom, 2013, www.dc4mf.org/
wp-content/uploads/2013/04/gcc_media_law_en_0.pdf, last accessed 23 January
2019.

240
 NOTES pp. [118–120]

73. Law No. 8 of the Year 1979 on Prints and Publications, Articles 2 and 5, www.
dc4mf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/press_law_qatar.pdf, last accessed
23 January 2019.
74. Ibid., Article 9.
75. Ibid., Articles 10, 11, and 12. Though the law refers to the Ministry of Information
as the licensing authority, former Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani abol-
ished that ministry when he came to power in 1995. The Ministry of Culture, Arts
and Heritage is now responsible for the enforcement of the press law. See David
Salt and Emma Higham, “Qatar’s ‘Press Law”’ Qatar Juris Updates 11, 6 (2013),
www.inhousecommunity.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/v11i6_Qatar_
JURIS_UPDATES.pdf, last accessed 23 January 2019.
76. Law No. 8 of the Year 1979, Articles 17, 24, and 25.
77. Lambert, ‘Qatar Law Will Test Media Freedom;’ Duffy, Media Laws and
Regulations of the GCC Countries.
78. Law No. 11 of 2004, Penal Code, http://portal.www.gov.qa/wps/wcm/connect/
8abaea8046be1deaae97ef70b3652ad8/Penal+Code.pdf ?MOD=AJPERES&us
eDefaultText=0&useDefaultDesc=0, last accessed 23 January 2019.
79. ‘Qatar: Revise Draft Media Law to Allow Criticism of Rulers,’ Human Rights
Watch, 30 October 2013, www.hrw.org/news/2012/10/30/qatar-revise-draft-
media-law-allow-criticism-rulers; Duffy, Media Laws and Regulations of the GCC
Countries.
80. Law No. 11 of 2004, Penal Code, http://portal.www.gov.qa/wps/wcm/connect/
8abaea8046be1deaae97ef70b3652ad8/Penal+Code.pdf ?MOD=AJPERES&us
eDefaultText=0&useDefaultDesc=0.
81. Law No. 14 of 2014, Cybercrime Prevention Law, http://chato.cl/blog/files/
QatarCybercrimeLaw_unofficial_translation.pdf.
82. Non-Western countries come in for particularly intense scrutiny by Western media.
See John Hargreaves, ‘Olympism and Nationalism: Some Preliminary Considera­
tions,’ International Review for the Sociology of Sport 27, no. 2 (1992): 119–35.
83. An obvious question is why sports journalism is not more rigorous. The reasons
are many, and beyond the scope of this paper, but the short answer is that sports
journalism has never been rigorous. Sports divisions in most media companies
continue to be regarded as the ‘toy department,’ not a place where serious report-
ers ply their trade. Most of the major international sports stories of the last decade—
match-fixing in tennis and football, money-laundering in football, the risks of
concussive injury, doping in cycling, athletics and in other sports, corruption and
self-dealing in ISNGOs, the sexual abuse of child athletes—were not developed
by sports reporters but reporters working other news beats. There are some superb
sports media (such as Play the Game, Edge of Sports, Transparency in Sport,
Around the Rings, Inside the Games, 3Wire Sports, Engaging Sports, the
Allrounder, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, VICE Sports, the New

241
pp. [120–121] NOTES
York Times), but most mainstream sports reporters continue to be dependent for
their livelihoods on the sports teams, leagues and competitions they cover. This is
all the more so where accreditation to cover an event or an organization comes
with exclusive access to sport venues.
84. The PRC refused to participate in the Olympics for almost four decades in a bat-
tle over whether the IOC would recognize it or Taiwan as the ‘real’ China.
85. There is a history of illiberal host countries attempting to control or suppress press
coverage before and during a sport mega-event. In the run-up to the 1978 World
Cup, for example, the military government in Argentina cracked down on domes-
tic journalists, issuing guidelines that detailed subjects forbidden in news cover-
age or commentary. Between 1976 and 1978, seventy-two journalists disappeared
or were jailed, and about 400 went into exile. Several European human rights
groups protested Argentina’s games, as did some football associations and players.
The Argentine government had attempted to mollify international criticism by
inviting Amnesty International to visit the country in 1976, but the organization’s
subsequent report documented the regime’s ongoing human rights violations. See
Smith, Bill L., ‘The Argentinian Junta and the Press in the Run-up to the 1978
World Cup’, Soccer and Society 3, 1 (2002), pp. 69.
86. In 2006, China issued regulations giving foreign journalists more freedom to report
in the country in the run-up to and during the games, but only for a year. More
generally, see Rowe, David, ‘The Bid, the Lead-up, the Event and the Legacy:
Global Cultural Politics and Hosting the Olympics’, British Journal of Sociology
63, 2 ( June 2012), pp. 285–305.
87. Batty, David, ‘Media Face Web Censorship at Beijing Olympics’, The Guardian,
30 July 2008, www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/30/china.olympic-
games2008, last accessed 23 January 2019.
88. Jacobs, Andrew, ‘China to Limit Web Access during Olympic Games’, New York
Times, 31 July 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/sports/olympics/31china.
html, last accessed 23 January 2019.
89. Batty, ‘Media Face Web Censorship at Beijing Olympics.’
90. Worden, Minky, ‘No medals for the IOC’, New York Times, 15 August 2008, www.
nytimes.com/2008/08/15/opinion/15iht-edworden.1.15328869.html.
91. In response to these episodes, and to criticism of human rights abuses in Brazil in
advance of the 2016 games, the IOC, in cooperation with the US-based Committee
to Protect Journalists, launched a confidential, registration-based ‘press freedom
reporting tool’ for the 2016 Rio Games with which journalists could report any
instances of official interference with their ability to report and publish. If the
IOC thought the complaints legitimate it would ‘follow-up with the relevant
stakeholders.’ See the ‘Media Complaints Reporting Tool,’ Olympic.org, https://
secure.registration.olympic.org/en/media-complaint/, last accessed 23 January
2019.

242
 NOTES pp. [121–126]

92. Shahine, Alaa, ‘Game-Changing Qatar Law to Grant Expats Permanent Residency’,

Bloomberg, 2 August 2017, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017–08–02/
qatar-passes-landmark-law-to-grant-permanent-residency-to-expats, last accessed
23 January 2019.
93. Adly, Ayman, ‘End-of-service Benefits for Domestic Hands,’ Gulf Times, 23 August
2017; and Aljundi, Hisham, ‘Domestic Helps Entitled to End-of-Service Gratuity’,
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service-benefits-for-domestic-hands, last accessed 23 January 2019.
94. See Kamrava, Mehran, ‘Royal Factionalism and Political Liberalization in Qatar’
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University in Qatar, Doha: 2016, pp. 20–22, www.qatar.northwestern.edu/docs/
publications/research-media-use/2016-middle-east-media-use-report.pdf, last
accessed 23 January 2019.
96. ‘Is it Time for Northwestern to Quit Qatar?’ The Daily Northwestern, 10 June
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is-it-time-for-northwestern-to-quit-qatar/, last accessed 23 January 2019.

7. TURKISH SPORTS: LOST IN POLITICS?

1. Smith, Andy, and Daniel Bloyce, Sport Policy and Development: An Introduction,
London: Routledge, 2010.
2. King, Neil, Sport Policy and Governance: Local Perspectives, Oxford: Elsevier, 2009.
3. Kissoudi, Penelope, ‘Sport, Politics and International Relations in the Twentieth
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4. Hoye, Russell, et al., Sport Management: Principles and Applications, 4th ed., Oxford:
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5. Green, Mick, ‘Olympic Glory or Grassroots Development? Sport Policy Priorities
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of the History of Sport 24, 7 (2007), pp. 921–53.
6. Reiche, Danyel, ‘Investing in Sporting Success as a Domestic and Foreign Policy
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7. Leftwich, Adrian, What is Politics? The Activity and its Study, Oxford: Blackwell,
1984.
8. Aykin, Alparslan Gazi, and Fatma Pervin Bilir, ‘Hükümet Programları ve Spor
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translated from Turkish to English by the author.
9. Akça, Yaşar, and Gökhan Özer, ‘Sports Policy of Turkey in Development Plans’,
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10. Devlet Planlama Teşkilatı [State Planning Organization], Kalkınma Planı İkinci
Beş Yıl [Second Five-Year Development Plan], Ankara: State Planning Organization
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11. Devlet Planlama Teşkilatı [State Planning Organization], Kalkınma Planı Üçüncü
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12. Devlet Planlama Teşkilatı [State Planning Organization], Kalkınma Planı
Dördüncü Beş Yıl [Fourth Five-Year Development Plan], Ankara: State Planning
Organization Publications, 1978.
13. Fişek, Kurthan, Dünyada ve Türkiye’de Spor Yönetimi [Sport Management in
Turkey and in the World], Ankara: Ankara University Press, 1981; Original quote
is in Turkish. All Turkish quotes in this chapter were translated from Turkish to
English by the author.
14. Okumus, Fevzi, ‘Impact of an Economic Crisis: Evidence from Turkey’, Annals of
Tourism Research 32, 4 (2005), pp. 942–961.
15. Çolakoğlu, Tekin, and Erturan, Esra, ‘Spor Federasyonlarının Özerkleşmeleri ve
Hukuksal Boyutunda Spor Hukuku Gereksinimleri’, [Autonomy of sport federa-
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16. Tinaz, Cem, Douglas Michele Turco, and Paul Salisbury, ‘Sport Policy in Turkey’,
International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 6, 3 (2014), pp. 533–545.
17. Law no. 5105, Law for the Amendment of the Law on the Organization and
Duties of the General Directorate of Youth and Sports (2004).
18. Erturan, Esra, and Faik İmamoğlu, ‘Özerkleşen Spor Federasyonlarının İdari ve
Mali Açıdan Değerlendirilmesi’ [Administrative and Financial Evaluation of
Autonomous Sports Federations], paper presented at the 9th International Sport
Sciences Congress, Muğla, Turkey, 20–22 October 2006.
19. Author’s interview with former Sports Minister Mehmet Ali Şahin, 10 July 2012,
Ankara.
20. Law no. 7258, Regulation of Betting and Lottery Games in Soccer and Other
Sports, 2007.
21. Aksar, Tuğrul, ‘Iddaanin futbola katkisi,’ [The contribution of Iddaa to Football],
Futbol Ekonomi, 2009, www.futbolekonomi.com/index.php?option=com_cont
ent&view=article&id=575:ddaann-futbola-katks&catid=35:tugrulaksar&Ite
mid=57, last accessed 23 January 2019.
22. Author’s interview with former Sports Minister Faruk Nafiz Özak, 12 July 2012,
Ankara.
23. Law no. 6222, Law for the Prevention of Violence and Match-fixing in Sports,
2011.
24. Üstünel, Rüstem, and Zafer Alkurt, ‘Futbolda şiddet ve düzensizliğin önlenmesi
için 6222 sayılı yasanın getirdiği yeni bir uygulama: Elektronik Bilet ve Yaşanan

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Sorunlar’ [A New Application by Law No. 6222 for Prevention of Football

Violence and Disorder: Electronic Ticket and Problems Experienced], Science
Journal of Turkish Military Academy 25, 2 (2015), pp. 141–75.
25. Üstünel and Alkurt, ‘Elektronik Bilet ve Yaşanan Sorunlar,’ p. 148.
26. Breuer, Christoph, Remco Hoekman, Siegfried Nagel, and Harold Van Der Werff,
eds. Sport Clubs in Europe a Cross-national Comparative Perspective, Cham:
Springer, 2015.
27. Author’s interview with former Sports Minister Mehmet Ali Şahin, 10 July 2012,
Ankara.
28. Law no. 5253, Law of Associations, 2004.
29. Ministry of Youth and Sport, Ulusal Gençlik ve Spor Politikası Belgesi [National
youth and sport policy paper], Ankara, 2013, www.gsb.gov.tr/public/edit/files/
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2019.
30. Regulations on Rewarding of Success in Youth and Sports Service and Activities
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31. Ministry of Youth and Sports, Ödül Yönetmeliği Değişiyor [Regulation on awards
is changing], 2013, http://gsb.gov.tr/HaberDetaylari/3/1982/odul-yonetmeligi-
degisiyor.aspx, last accessed 23 January 2019.
32. Phone interview with athlete manager Önder Özbilen, 6 March 2018.
33. General Directorate of Sport, Stratejik Plan 2015–2019 [Strategic plan for 2015–
2019], 2015. https://sgm.gsb.gov.tr/Public/Edit/images/SGM/StratejiB%C3%
BCt%C3%A7e/SGM_Stratejik%20Plan%20_%202015–2019_(04,01).pdf, last
accessed 23 January 2019.
34. Author’s interview with former Sports Minister Faruk Nafiz Özak, 12 July 2012,
Ankara.
35. Author’s interview with the president of the Turkish National Olympic Committee,
Uğur Erdener, 3 July 2017, Ankara.
36. Author’s interview with the president of the Turkish National Olympic Committee,
Uğur Erdener, 3 July 2017.
37. ‘Türkiye Olimpiyatlarda Ne Yaptı’ [What Turkey did at the Olympic Games], Al
Jazeera Türk, 22 August 2016, www.aljazeera.com.tr/haber/turkiye-olimpiyat-
larda-ne-yapti, last accessed 23 January 2016.
38. Hacer Akyüz (President of the Orienteering Federation), Gülkız Tülay (President
of the Chess Federation), Özlem Akdurak (President of the Sailing Federation).
39. Başbakanlık İletişim Merkezi (Bimer) [Presidential Communication Centre],
communication with the organization via e-mail, 11 December 2017.
40. Author’s interview with the Secretary General of the Turkish Tennis Federation,
Serhat Altınel, 2 February 2018, Istanbul.
41. ‘Yaklaşık 3 milyon Suriye’li kayıt altında’ [Nearly 3 million Syrians are registered],
Haberturk.com.tr, 15 March 2017, www.haberturk.com/gundem/haber/1427703-
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42. Zengin, Eyüp and Cemal Öztaş, ‘Yerel Yönetimler ve Spor’ [Local municipalities
and sport], Sosyal Siyaset Konferansları Dergisi 55 (2010), pp. 49–78.
43. Law no. 5393, Belediyeler Kanunu [The Law of Municipalities], 2005.
44. Author’s interview with Yalçın Aksoy, liaison for Istanbul’s 2000, 2004, 2008 and
2012 Olympic Bids, 23 June 2017, Istanbul.
45. Whitson, David, and John Horne, ‘Underestimated Costs and Overestimated
Benefits? Comparing the Outcomes of Sports Mega-Events in Canada and Japan’,
in Sports Mega-Events: Social Scientific Analyses of a Global Phenomenon, ed. John
Horne and Wolfram Manzenreiter, Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, pp. 73–89; Waitt,
Gordon, ‘The Olympic Spirit and Civic Boosterism: The Sydney 2000 Olympics’,
Tourism Geographies 3, 3 (2001), pp. 249–78; Essex, Stephen, and Brian Chalkley,
‘Mega-Sporting Events in Urban and Regional Policy: A History of the Winter
Olympics’, Planning Perspectives 19, 2 (2006), pp. 201–32.
46. Author’s interview with the Secretary General of the Turkish Olympic Committee
Neşe Gündoğan, 2 June 2017, Istanbul; author’s interview with the CEO of
Istanbul’s 2020 Olympic Bid Ali Kiremitçioğlu, 2 May 2017.
47. Houlihan, Barrie, ‘Public Sector Sport Policy,’ International Review for the Sociology
of Sport 40, 2 (2005), pp. 165–85.
48. Latouche, Daniel, ‘Montreal 1976’, in Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning, and
the World’s Games, 1896–2012, eds. J. Gold and M. Gold, London: Routledge,
2007; Searle, Glen, ‘Uncertain Legacy: Sydney’s Olympic Stadiums’, European
Planning Studies 10, 7 (2002), pp. 845–60.
49. Zimbalist, Andrew, Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the
Olympics and the World Cup, Washington: The Brookings Institution, 2015.
50. See for example, Andranovich, Greg, Matthew Burbank, and Charles Heying,
‘Olympic Cities: Lessons Learned from Mega-Event Politics’, Journal of Urban
Affairs 23, 2 (2001), pp. 113–31; and Fourie, Johan, and Karly Spronk, ‘South
African Mega-Sport Events and Their Impact on Tourism’, Journal of Sport and
Tourism 16, 1 (2011), pp. 75–97.
51. Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu (TUIK), İstatistiklerle Gençlik,2017 [Turkish Statistical
Institution, Youth in Statistics, 2017], Ankara, 2018.
52. Author’s interview with former Sports Minister Faruk Nafiz Özak 12 July 2012,
Ankara.
53. General Directorate of Sports Statistics, 2016, http://sgm.gsb.gov.tr/
Sayfalar/175/105/Istatistikler, last accessed 23 January 2019.
54. Author’s interview with the Sports Director of the Turkish Basketball Federation,
İbrahim Erkan, 10 January 2018, Istanbul.
55. Author’s interview with the Secretary General of the Turkish Tennis Federation
Serhat Altınel, 2 February 2018, Istanbul.
56. Gedikoglu, Tokay, ‘Avrupa Birliği Sürecinde Türk Eğitim Sistemi: Sorunlar ve
Çözüm Önerileri’ [Turkish Education System through the European Union

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Process: Problems and Possible Solutions], Mersin University Journal of the Faculty
of Education 1, 1 (2005), pp. 66–80.
57. Interview with former Sport Minister Faruk Nafiz Özak, personal communica-
tion with author, 12 July 2012, Ankara.
58. David Kirk and Trish Gorely, ‘Challenging Thinking About the Relationship
Between School Physical Education and Sport Performance,’ European Physical
Education Review 6 (2000): 119–34.
59. Author’s interview with the president of the Turkish National Olympic Committee,
Uğur Erdener, 3 July 2017, Ankara.
60. Author’s interview with former Sports Minister Murat Başesgioğlu, 11 July 2012,
Ankara; author’s interview with former Sports Minister Mehmet Ali Şahin, 10 July
2012, Ankara.
61. ‘Türkiye’nin Stadyum Yatırımlarında Son Durum,’ [Latest stand of Turkey’s sta-
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larinda-son-durum-haberi/338938, last accessed 23 January 2019.
62. Masterman, Guy, Strategic Sports Event Management: An International Approach,
Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, 2004, p. 78
63. Masterman, Strategic Sports Event Management.

8. DEVELOPING A NATIONAL ELITE SPORT POLICY IN AN ARAB

COUNTRY
1. Beck, Peter, ‘War Minus the Shooting: George Orwell on International Sport and
the Olympics,’ Sport in History 33, 1 (2013), pp. 72–94.
2. Colomb, Pierre, ‘Sport et Etat’, (Sport and State), Pouvoirs 61 (1992), p. 41.
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7. Ramadan, Mazen, Head of the 2016 Lebanese Olympic delegation, in discussion
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8. Ibid.
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25. Callede, ‘Les Politiques du Sport en France,’ 447.

26. Novikov and Maximenko, ‘The Influence of Selected Socio-economic Factors,’
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44. Houlihan, Barrie, ‘Public Sector Sport Policy: Developing a Framework for
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46. Ibid., p. 42.
47. Ibid., p. 47.
48. Reiche, Success and Failure of Countries at the Olympic Games, pp. 3–4.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid., p. 90.
51. Ibid., p. 97.
52. Ibid., p. 108.
53. Ibid., p. 126.
54. Nassif, ‘Elite Sport Ranking.’
55. De Bosscher, Verlee, et al., The Global Sporting Arms Race: An International
Comparative Study on Sports Policy Factors Leading to International Sporting Success,
Oxford, UK: Meyer & Meyer Sport, 2008.
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of Non-material and Material Factors’; Rathke and Woitek, ‘Economics and the
Summer Olympics’, p. 521; Den Butter and van der Tak, ‘Olympic Medals as an
Indicator of Social Welfare’, p. 27–8; Johnson and Ali, ‘Coming to Play or Coming
to Win’, p. 8; Hon-Kwong and Suen, ‘Men, Money and Medals,’ p. 1; Tuyckom
and Joreskog, ‘Going for Gold! Welfare Characteristics and Olympic Success’,
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Wins’, p. 314; Kuper and Sterken, ‘Olympic Participation and Performance Since
1896’; Moosa and Smith, ‘Economic Development Indicators as Determinants
of Medal Winning at the Sydney Olympics’, p. 300; Tcha and Pershin,
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67. De Bosscher et al., Successful Elite Sport Policies, p. 24; Reiche, Success and Failure
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68. Sacre, Joseph, Le Sport au Liban (Sport in Lebanon), Beirut: Joseph Reayde
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69. Nassif, Sport Policy in Lebanon, p. 52.
70. Ibid., p. 53.
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p. 2119.
72. Stanton, ‘Pioneer of Olympism in the Middle East,’ p. 2119.
73. Ibid., p. 2120.
74. Mazen Ramadan, Head of the 2016 Lebanese Olympic Delegation, in discussion
with the author, May 2016.
75. Sanjay Myers, ‘Government Serious about Sport, Says PM’, Jamaica Observer,
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76. European Programme of National Cultural Policy Reviews, Cultural Policy in
Estonia, Council for Cultural Co-operation Strasbourg, 1996, p. 245
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80. Ibid.
81. De Bosscher, Verlee, Popi Sotiriadou, and Maarten van Bottenburg, ‘Scrutinizing
the Sport Pyramid Metaphor: An Examination of the Relationship between Elite
Success and Mass Participation in Flanders’, International Journal of Sport Policy
and Politics 5, 3 (2013), p. 320.
82. Colomb, ‘Sport et Etat’, p. 41; Calmat, Alain, ‘Sport et Nationalisme’ (Sport and
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Henry, Amara, and Al-Tauqui, ‘Sport, Arab Nationalism and the Pan-Arab Games’,
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Géopolitique de l’Espace Méditerranéen’ (The Mediterranean Games: A reflec-
tion of the geopolitical situation in the Mediterranean space), Les Cahiers de
Confluence, 50 (2004), p. 71; Chifflet, Pierre and S. Gouda, ‘Sport et Politique
Nationale au Bénin de 1975 à 1990’ (Sport and National Policy in Benin from
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Niger’ Wrestling and cultural identity in Niger, Politique Africaine 45 (1992),
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83. Salibi, Kamal, A House of Many Mansions. The History of Lebanon Reconsidered,
London: I.B. Tauris, 2009, p. 35.
84. Nassif, Nadim, and Mahfoud Amara, ‘Sport Policy and Politics in Lebanon,’
International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 7, 2 (2015), p. 1.
85. Ibid.
86. Ibid, p. 6.
87. Nassif, Nadim, ed. ‘The Olympic Movement and the Arab World—History,
Culture and Geopolitics, Factors Behind Lebanon’s Difficulties to Achieve Success
in the Olympics’, The International Journal of the History of Sport Journal (forth-
coming).
88. Reiche, Danyel, ‘Why Developing Countries are just Spectators in the “Gold War”:
The Case of Lebanon in the Olympic Games’, Third World Quarterly 38, 4 (2017),
pp. 1003–4.
89. Reiche, ‘Why Developing Countries are just Spectators in the ‘Gold War’, p. 1002.
90. Reiche, Success and Failure of Countries at the Olympic Games, p. 97.
91. Ibid., p. 108.
92. Reiche, ‘Why Developing Countries are just Spectators in the “Gold War”,’ p. 1002.
93. Nassif, Nadim, Sport Policy in Lebanon, p. 75.
94. Ibid., p. 76.
95. Ibid., p. 66.
96. Overman, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Sport.
97. Decree 247 of the Ministry of Youth and Sports.
98. Nadim Nassif, ‘Corruption in Sport: The Case of Lebanon,’ Middle East Law and
Governance Journal 6, no. 2 (2014): 139.
99. Raymond Touma, Financing Director of the Lebanese Ministry of Youth and
Sports, in discussion with the author, March 2011.

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100. Deputy Simon Abi Ramia, Head of the Lebanese Youth and Sports Parliamentary
Committee, in discussion with the author, February 2010.
101. Antoine Chartier, Former President of the Lebanese Olympic Committee, in
discussion with the author, March 2011.
102. Deputy Simon Abi Ramia, Head of the Lebanese Youth and Sports Parliamentary
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author, March 2011.
103. Callede, Jean-Paul, ‘Les Politiques du Sport en France’, p. 447.
104. Nassif, ‘Corruption in Sport: The Case of Lebanon,’ p. 133.
105. De Bosscher, et al., Successful Elite Sport Policies, p. 24; Reiche, Success and Failure
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106. De Bosscher, ed., Veerle, ‘SPLISS Conference on Elite Sport Success: Society
Boost or Not?’ 13–14 November 2013, Antwerp, Conference Proceedings, Vrije
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9. 
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COUNTRIES: A CASE STUDY OF LEBANON
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2. Cornelissen, Scarlett, ‘The Geopolitics of Global Aspiration: Sport Mega-events
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3. Zimbalist, Andrew, Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the
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10. Cornelissen, ‘Geopolitics of Global Aspiration,’ p. 3008.
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12. Ibid., p. 89.
13. Horne, ‘Sports Mega-events,’ p. 332.
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15. Horne, ‘Sports Mega-events’, p. 332.
16. Reiche, ‘The Case of Qatar’, p. 489–504.
17. Horne, ‘Sports Mega-events’, p. 334.
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20. Khashan, Hilal, Inside the Lebanese Confessional Mind, Lanham, MD: University
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21. Personal communication with the author, 2014, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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23. ‘Aoun: FIBA Asia Cup Proves International Trust in Lebanon’, National News
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24. Henry, Amara, and Al-Tauqi, ‘The Pan-Arab Games’, p. 295.
25. Silva and Gerber, ‘The Pan-Arab Games (1953–1965)’, p. 2100.
26. Henry, Amara, and Al-Tauqi, ‘The Pan-Arab Games’, p. 295.
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30. Silva and Gerber, ‘The Pan-Arab Games (1953–1965)’ p. 2108.
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33. Rowe, ‘The AFC Asian Cup’ p. 190.

34. Ibid., p. 194–195.
35. Megheirkouni, Majd, ‘Arab Sport between Islamic Fundamentalism and Arab
Spring’, Sport in Society 20, 11 (2017), p. 1494.
36. Beard, ‘Lebanon’s Asian Odyssey: Battered Beirut has been Rejuvenated by
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2000.
38. ‘The Asia Cup: Ultimatum to Lebanon’, Middle East News Online, 15 August
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40. ‘Aoun: FIBA Asia Cup Proves International Trust in Lebanon.’
41. ‘Spectacular Ceremony Kicks off Francophone Games in Lebanon’, The Daily Star,
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42. Zaatari, Mohammed, ‘Bahia Hariri Expresses Pride during Francophone Games’,
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43. Beard, ‘Lebanon’s Asian Odyssey’, p. 6.
44. Nassif, Nadim, Sport Policy in Lebanon, 1975 to 2004: Lebanese Geopolitical
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Saarbrucken: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2009, p. 58.
45. Ibid.
46. Patrick Galey, ‘Why People Only Chose to see the Worst in the Francophone
Games.’ The Daily Star, 9 October 2009, www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-
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48. Silva and Gerber, ‘The Pan-Arab Games (1953–1965)’, p. 2108.
49. The following cultural events are part of the Francophone Games: singing, story-
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information see www.jeux.francophonie.org, last accessed 23 January 2019.
50. Henry, Amara, and Al-Tauqi, ‘The Pan-Arab Games’, p. 306.
51. Ibid.
52. ‘With 50 days to #FIBAAsiaCup2017, Meet the Participating Teams’, Fédération
Internationale de Basketball (FIBA), 15 August 2017, www.fiba.com/asia-

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53. Catacutan, Dodo, ‘Andray Blatche unlikely to join Gilas in FIBA Asia Cup owing
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54. Ghazi, Ayman, ‘Sports in Lebanon.’
55. ‘War or Peace, Asia 2000 will Stay’, Middle East News Online, 9 October 2000.
56. ‘War or Peace, Asia 2000 will Stay.’
57. Personal communication with the author, 2017, Beirut.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid.
60. Henry, Amara and Al-Tauqi, ‘The Pan-Arab Games’ p. 304.
61. Ghazi, Ayman, ‘Sports in Lebanon: Sports City’, 4 August 1997, www.ghazi.de/
pancity.html, last accessed 23 January 2019.
62. ‘Canada to Contribute $1 Million to Francophone Games’, The Daily Star,
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63. Personal communication with author, 2017, Beirut.
64. Ibid.
65. Personal communication with author, 2017, Beirut.
66. ‘Tripoli Stadium still an Asian Cup Problem,’ Middle East News Online,
21 September 2000.
67. Personal communication with author, 2017, Beirut.
68. Rowe, ‘The AFC Asian Cup,’ 194.
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70. Personal communication with author, 2017, Beirut.
71. Ibid.
72. Ibid.
73. Ibid.
74. Ibid.
75. ‘Corruption Perceptions Index 2016’, Transparency International, 14 August 2017,
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76. Personal communication with author, 2017, Beirut.

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77. Ibid.
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid.
80. Ibid.
81. Horne, ‘Sports Mega-Events’, p. 335.
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10. THE BUSINESS OF SPORTS IN THE GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL

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tent/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/sports-business-group/deloitte-uk-sbg-dubai-
falcon-report.pdf, last accessed 23 January 2019.
55. ‘GCC Nations Eye Greater Share of $600 bn Global Sports Tourism Industry’,
Qatar Tribune, 31 January 2017, www.qatar-tribune.com/news-details/id/46513,
last accessed 23 January 2019.

261
 INDEX

A.U.C. Review, The, 22 AC Milan, 184, 188

abaya, 78 Adana, Turkey, 142
‘Abd al-Aziz ‘Abdal-Mowjud, 22 Adom Oleh, 63
‘Abd al-Sattar ‘Abd al-Latif, 29 Adwan tribe, 47
Abdullah I, King of Jordan, 43, 47, 51 Afghanistan, 83–4
Abdullah II, King of Jordan, 48–9 al-Ahli Dubai SC, 199
Abi Ramia, Simon, 161–2 al-Ahli Egypt SC, 33
al-Abtal, 23, 29 al-Ahli Saudi FC, 192, 195
Ahmad in, 26 Ahmad, Anwar, 26
Higazi in, 27 al-Ahram, 31
morality in, 26 Aintab, Turkey, 20
photographs section, 29–30, 30, 31 AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi), see
physical training section, 24, 25 Justice and Development Party
Vittorio Emmanuel III’s state visit al-Al‘ab al-Riyadiyya, 23
(1933), 11–13, 12 Alborz College, Tehran, 20
wrestling in, 18, 19 Aleppo, Syria, 17
Abu Dhabi, 1, 189, 195 Alexandria, Egypt, 15, 16, 17, 29, 31
Economic Vision 2030, 185 basketball in, 22
Etihad Airways, 187 Lycée Français, 22
Ferrari World, 189 Mixed Sporting Association, 33
Grand Prix, 1, 184, 189 sports clubs in, 16, 17
Manchester City acquisition, 1, 184 Algeria, 149
rentier economy, 187 Ali, Ayfer, 150
tourism, 185 Allenby Bridge, 53
Yas Island, 196 Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), 21
Yas Sports, 196 Almaty, Kazakhstan, 114
Abu Lughod, Lila, 76, 90 Amara, Mahfoud, 176, 177
Abu-Odeh, Adnan, 54 American University in Beirut, 20, 21

263
 INDEX

American University in Cairo, 20, 22 Armenian language, 19, 20, 24, 25,
Amman, Jordan 28, 30
Pan-Arab Games (1999), 176 Arsenal FC, 188
al-Wihdat refugee camp, 42, 43, 44, arsim, 69
46, 50 Ascot Racecourse, Berkshire, 200
al-Wihdat SC, 5–6, 42, 44–6, 48–54 Ashkenazim, 58, 60, 61, 70
Amnesty International, 120, 197 Asian Football Confederation (AFC),
Amsterdam Summer Olympics (1928), 166–82, 195, 199
35 Asian Games, 84, 139
Anatolia College, Marsovan, 20, 21 Aspetar, 186
Andreff, Wladimir, 150 Assiut University, 22
Ankara, Turkey, 16, 142 Athens, Greece, 120
anti-nationalism, 6, 56, 59, 65–6 athletics, 114, 140, 157, 159, 186
Anti-Racism and Discrimination Atlanta Summer Olympics (1996),
Taskforce, 113 150, 157
anti-racism, 6, 55, 63–4, 113 Atlas, Jurj, 29
Antifa, 59 Australia, 124, 149, 200
Antonine University, 170 Austria, 182
Antwerp, Belgium Azerbaijan, 114
1920 Olympic Games, 35
2013 SPLISS Conference, 163 Bab al-Sbat, Jerusalem, 33
Aoun, Michel, 171, 174, 180 badu, 52–3
al-Aqsa compound, Jerusalem, 51 Baghdad, Iraq, 16, 17, 29, 34, 38
Arab Charter on Human Rights Bahrain, 1, 2, 9, 191, 202
(2004), 118 Economic Vision 2030, 185
Arab League, 171, 177 GCC membership, 184
Arab Revolt (1916–18), 47 Grand Prix, 1, 184, 189, 195
Arab Uprisings (2011), 42, 49, 51, 93, Gulf Air, 187, 189
96, 98, 173 Mumtalakat Holding Company, 189
Arab Youth Media Initiative, 97 piracy in, 194
Arab–Israeli conflict Qatar, relations with, 195
1948–9 Arab–Israeli War, 43, 51–2 Sakhir, 196
1956 Suez Crisis, 158 Bakkar, Muhammad, 29
1967 Six-Day War, 43, 65, 71 Baku, Azerbaijan, 114
1982–5 Lebanon War, 51, 177 Balqa, Jordan, 47
1993–5 Oslo process, 42, 46, 48 Bangladesh, 150, 157
1996 Operation Grapes of Wrath, Barcelona Summer Olympics (1992),
173 148
Arabic, 3, 19, 20, 24, 28, 30, 38 Başesgioğlu, Murat, 135, 143
archery, 140 basketball, 95
Argentina, 111, 153 in Egypt, 22

264
 INDEX

in Israel, 1, 6, 55, 59, 63, 66, 67–9 Bliss, Howard, 21

in Lebanon, 8, 157, 166–82 BMX, 104
in Qatar, 84, 89 Bolt, Usain, 159
in Turkey, 8, 21, 27, 137, 139, 140, boxing, 26, 29, 157
142 Boyd, Danah, 96
Bayat, Asef, 73, 77, 90 Brannagan, Paul Michael, 110
Bayern Munich, 192 Brazil
Bdeir, Walid, 63 FIFA World Cup (2014), 125, 166
Beard, Matthew, 174 al-Karma, 29
Bedouin, 2, 5, 47, 51, 52–3 Olympic Games (2018), 80, 125,
Beijing, China 136, 137, 148, 150, 153, 166
2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, 7, British Broadcasting Corporation
108, 120–21, 125, 136 (BBC), 120
2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, 114, British Empire, 149
125 Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
BeIn Sport, 196 (1908–54), 15
Beirut, Lebanon, 16, 17, 38 Egypt (1882–1923), 15–16, 31
al-Abtal readership, 29 Iraq (1920–32), 47
American University, 20, 21 Jordan (1921–46), 46–7
Francophone Games (2009), Palestine (1920–48), 16, 36, 43, 59
166–81 Qatar (1916–71), 80, 188
Le Jour, 31 Trucial States (1820–1971), 188
Mediterranean Games (1959), 166, Brooklyn Nets, 176
171, 172 Buenos Aires Resolution (2001), 113
al-Nahar, 31 Burkina Faso, 109
Pan-Arab Games, 165–80 Burrda Sport, 187, 192
Sports City Stadium, 176, 177, 178, Busse, Meghan, 150, 157
179, 180 būyāt, 85–6
Syrian Protestant College, 20, 21–2
Belgium, 35, 163 Cairo, Egypt, 38
Belk, Russell, 89 al-Abtal, see al-Abtal
Ben Mhenni, Lina, 97 al-Ahli SC, 33
Ben Porat, Amir, 56 al-Ahram, 31
Ben Zevi, Efrat, 53 American University in Cairo
Benin, 149 (AUC), 20, 22, 23
Bernard, Andrew, 150, 157 British people in, 15–16
Betar Jerusalem, 57, 59–65, 67, 69, female ‘non-liberal’ mosque move-
70, 72 ment, 77
blasphemy, 7, 119 Gezira Sporting Club, 15–16
Blatche, Andray, 176 New London House, 32
Blatter, Joseph ‘Sepp’, 174 as nodal city, 38

265
 INDEX

sports clubs in, 15–16, 17 Comprehensive National Power

wrestling in, 18, 19, 39 (CNP), 156
YMMA, 18, 19, 39 Confédération Européenne de Vol-
Cameroon, 149 leyball (CEV), 140
Canada, 124, 173, 177 Congo, 149
Cape Town, South Africa, 178 Constitutional School, Jerusalem, 20
Carmichael, Franklin, 149 Cornelissen, Scarlett, 167
Center for International and Regional Corruption Perceptions Index, 179
Studies (CIRS), 4 cricket, 15, 117, 188
Central College, Aintab, 20 Croatia, 182
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), CrossFit, 95, 100
155 Cumhuriyet, 31
Chalkley, Brian, 141 cycling, 140, 157, 170
Challenge 22 initiative, 197 Czechoslovakia, 172
Chamoun, Camille, 172
Chartier, Antoine, 162 Daily Star, The, 175
Chatham House, 108
Damascus, Syria, 38
China, 183
al-Abtal readership, 29
1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics,
football in, 33, 34
150, 157
Mu‘awiyya Club, 33
2000 AFC Asian Cup, 173, 180
al-Qabas, 31
2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, 7,
sports clubs in, 16, 17
108, 120–21, 125, 136, 166
darak, 50
2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, 114,
Darfur, 120
125, 166
Darley Stud Management, 200
Christianity, 3
in Lebanon, 172, 175 De Bosscher, Veerle, 149, 151–2, 155,
missionaries, 15, 18, 20–22, 38 157, 158, 162
YMCA, 18, 22 De Gaulle, Charles, 149–50, 162
Circle Sportive, 16 De Picciotto, Motti, 57
civilizing process, 56, 147 Declaration of Principles (1993), 46
climbing, 95, 104 Deloitte, 192–3, 200
Çolakoğlu, Tekin, 127 democracy, 3, 57, 111, 125
Cold War, 149, 172 Den Butter, Frank, 150, 157
Colomb, Pierre, 147 Denmark, 118
colonialism, 3, 5, 15–16, 31, 34, 36, 43, al-Difftain, 45
46–7, 59, 80, 149, 171 Doha, Qatar
Columbia University, 20 AFC Champions League in, 195
Commonwealth Games, 167 Center for Media Freedom, 118
Communist Party of Israel, 59 Education City, 4, 75–6, 87–90
Composite Index of National Capabil- female footballers in, 73, 87–90
ity (CINC), 156 Georgetown University, 4

266
 INDEX

Golf and Spa Resort, 187 al-nahda al-riyadiyya, 13

Hamad bin Khalifa University, 87 Nasserism, 149, 172
Northwestern University, 117, 122 National Football team, 35–6
Pan-Arab Games (2011), 173 in Olympic Games, 35
Qatar University, 75–6, 117 Pan-Arab Games (1957), 172, 175
Doha News, 107–8 physical education in, 12, 19, 20,
Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, 51 22–3
Don-Yehiye, Eliezer, 71 Prince Farouk Cup, 34, 35
doping, 131, 132, 134 punctuality in, 35–6
Dorsey, James, 112 referees in, 35
Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 187–8, Revolution (2011), 97
195, 196, 199 social media in, 7, 95, 103
Dubai CSC, 199 State Railways Institute (ESRI), 35
al-Duhail SC, 199 Suez Crisis (1956), 158
Dun, Susan, 79 Sultan’s Cup, 33
Dunning, Eric, 56 tennis in, 28
Vittorio Emmanuel III’s state visit
East Bank, 6, 42, 43–4, 45, 46–54 (1933), 11–13
East Jerusalem, 65 women in, 28, 77, 103
Education and Social Project, 63 wrestling, 18, 19, 39
Education City, Doha, 4, 75–6 YMMA, 18, 19, 39
Egypt, 2, 4, 149 Egyptian Gazette, The, 31, 33, 34
al-Abtal, see al-Abtal Egyptian State Railways Institute
al-Ahli SC, 33 (ESRI), 35
American University in Cairo Elena of Montenegro, Queen consort
(AUC), 20, 22, 23 of Italy, 11
basketball in, 22, 23 Elias, Norbert, 56
British occupation (1882–1923), Ellison, Nicole, 96
15–16, 31 Emirates Airlines, 184, 187–8
Egyptian Gazette, The, 31, 33, 34 English Church Missionary College,
female ‘non-liberal’ mosque move- Isfahan, 20, 22
ment, 77 English Premier League, 1, 184, 188,
football in, 15, 27, 31, 33–6 203
Football Association, 34 Erdener, Uğur, 134–5, 143
Gezira Sporting Club, 15–16 Eritrea, 63
Greek Club of Port Said, 17–18 Erturan, Esra, 127
gymnastics in, 11–13 Essex, Stephen, 141
Khedivate (1867–1914), 15 Estonia, 8, 148, 158
Maccabi Jewish Sports and Literary Etihad Airways, 187
Union, 17 Etilla‘at, 31
Mixed Sporting Association, 33 European Capital of Sport, 139

267
 INDEX

European Games, 114 Say No to Racism, 113

European Judo Championships, 139 South Africa, sanctions on, 113
European Union, 138 FIFA World Cup, 110
European Youth Olympic Festival, 139, 2002 South Korea/Japan, 8
140 2010 South Africa, 125, 166, 178
Evanston, Illinois, 122 2013 Turkey (U-20), 140
2014 Brazil, 125, 166
Facebook, 93, 95, 97, 115, 193 2018 Russia, 108, 109, 114, 115,
Fahrenthold, Stacey, 29 117, 119, 166
Faisali FC, 6, 45, 46–51, 53 2022 Qatar, see Qatar World Cup
fallah, 52, 53 Filastin, 31
Familia, La, 62, 70 Fillon, François, 174
Fatah, 43, 50 FINA (Fédération Internationale de
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Natation), 140
114 Finland, 181
feminism, 77, 97 First World War (1914–18), 33, 38,
fencing, 95 47, 171
FIBA (Fédération Internationale de FIVB (Fédération Internationale de
Basketball Association) Volleyball), 139, 140
Asia Cup, 166–82 Flickr, 93
EuroBasket, 1, 140, 181 Flourishing Literature Association,
EuroChallenge, 140 16–17
Euroleague, 140 football
Europe Under-18 Championship, colonialism and, 15, 80
140 in Egypt, 15, 27, 31, 33–6
World Championship for Women, in Iran, 22, 39
140 in Israel, 6, 55–72
World Cup, 8, 139 in Jordan, 2, 5–6, 44–54, 171, 180
fida’iyun, 45 in Lebanon, 8–9, 21–2, 157,
FIFA (Fédération Internationale de 166–82
Football Association), 110, 112 in Qatar, 1, 4, 6–7, 73–91, 199
Anti-Racism and Discrimination in Saudi Arabia, 174, 192, 195, 199
Taskforce, 113 in Syria, 33, 171–2, 180
Buenos Aires Resolution (2001), in Turkey, 1, 8, 18, 25, 34, 136, 137,
113 140
corruption scandals, 111, 114 in UAE, 199
human rights and, 113 women and, 3, 6–7, 73–91
as illiberal body, 114 Formula One
Lebanon and, 157, 180 in Abu Dhabi, 1, 184, 189, 195
Qatar and, 80, 83–4, 111, 113, 198 in Bahrain, 1, 184, 189, 195
Ruggie report (2016), 111, 113 in Qatar, 189, 195

268
 INDEX

in Turkey, 139, 144 Germanophobia in Israel, 6, 55, 68

France, 20, 30, 31 Hamburger SV, 188
Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), Holocaust, 6, 56, 66–70
21 journalists arrested in Qatar, 112
colonialism, 149, 172 sports clubs in, 130
EuroBasket (2015), 182 Winter Olympics 2022 bid, 114
Francophone Games, 174, 177 Gezira Sporting Club, 15
ISIS attacks (2015), 194 Ghana, 109
Lebanon, relations with, 177 Giulianotti, Richard, 110
Lycée Français, Alexandria, 22 Godolphin Racing, 200
Paris Olympics (1926), 36 Gold War, 147
Paris Saint-Germain FC, 1, 187, golf, 15, 140, 188
188, 196, 202 Goodwood Racecourse, Sussex, 200
Rome Olympics (1960), 149–50, Grand Prix
162 in Abu Dhabi, 1, 184, 189, 195
sports clubs in, 130 in Bahrain, 1, 184, 189, 195
Suez Crisis (1956), 158 in Qatar, 189, 195
Syria and Lebanon Mandate in Turkey, 139, 144
(1923–46), 172 Grange, Olivia, 159
Francophone Games, 166–81 Greek Club of Port Said, 17–18
free expression, 3, 7, 107–10, 115–22 Greek language, 19, 30
Freedom House, 118 Green Movement protests (2009), 97
Fuad I, King of Egypt, 33 Green, Mick, 151
futsal, 89 Grix, Jonathan, 149
Future Movement, 175 Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 8,
148, 150, 154–6, 158–9
Galey, Patrick, 175 Guardian, The, 174
gambling, 8, 129–30 Guevara, Ernesto ‘Che’, 58
Garcia, Michael, 111 Gulf Air, 187, 189
Gaza, 45, 48, 66, 71 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), 2,
Gemayel, Gabriel, 157–8 7, 9, 107, 108, 110, 121, 183–203
gender equality, 3, 25, 27–8, 73–91 gymnastics, 12–13, 38, 126, 140
gender segregation, 76, 79, 81, 83–4,
87 Habashneh, Ali, 49
General Zionists, 58 Habbat al-nar, 51–2
Georgetown University, 4 hadar, 52–3
Georgia, 8, 148, 158 Halbwachs, Maurice, 41
Gerber, Hans-Dieter, 171 Hall, Stuart, 94
Germany, 186 Hamas, 52
Bayern Munich, 192 Hamburger SV, 188
EuroBasket (2015), 182 handball, 137, 198, 203

269
 INDEX

Hanin, Dov, 59 Instagram, 93, 95, 98, 100, 101, 103–4

Hapoel Tel Aviv, 6, 55–72 International Association of Athletics
el-Harawi, Elias, 174 Federations (IAAF), 114, 140, 186
Hariri, Bahia, 174 International Basketball Federation, 84
Hariri, Rafiq, 171, 175, 177 International Centre for Sports Secu-
Harkness, Geoff, 81, 82 rity (ICSS), 186, 193
Harris, John, 168 International Covenant on Civil and
Harvard University, 14, 111 Political Rights (1966), 112
Hasan, Rasheed, 29 International Federations (IF), 112
Hashemites, 6, 46, 50 International Labour Organization,
Hassan, Crown Prince of Jordan, 48 113, 197
Hassan, Muhammad, 17 International Olympic Committee
al-hhayā, 83–4 (IOC), 112, 114, 115, 150
al-Hayat, 170 China and, 108, 120–21
health, 189–90 as illiberal body, 114
Hebrew, 3, 20, 30 Lebanon and, 160, 174, 180
Henry, Ian, 176, 177 Qatar and, 79–80
Herod’s Gate, Jerusalem, 33 social media and, 116–17
Herut, 58, 60 International Society of Sports Sciences
Herzog, Maurice, 149–50 in the Arab World (I3SAW), 153–7,
Higazi, Hussein, 27, 35 158
hijab, 81, 83, 84 international sport nongovernmental
al-Hilal, 16, 22 organizations (ISNGOs), 112, 114,
Hinkle, Eugene, 34 115, 122
Hitler, Adolf, 68 Intifada
hockey, 26 First (1987–93), 45
Holocaust, 6, 56, 66–70 Second (2000–5), 65
Horne, John, 141, 166–8, 180 Iran, 2, 4, 13
horseracing, 188, 200 AIU in, 21
Houlihan, Barrie, 151, 156 Alborz College, 20
human rights, 107–9, 111, 112–15, Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
117, 120–21, 197, 203 (1908–54), 15
al-Hussein SC, 50–51, 52 English Church Missionary College,
Hussein, King of Jordan, 43, 45, 48 20, 22
Hussein, Sharif of Mecca, 47 Etilla‘at, 31
football in, 22, 39
Iddaa, 8, 129–30 Green Movement protests (2009),
Illustrated London News, 11 97
Independent, The, 171 Jewish people in, 21
India, 150, 157, 166, 167, 190 Lebanon, relations with, 175
Indonesia, 150, 157 missionaries and, 20, 22

270
 INDEX

national sports day, 190 Ashkenazim, 58, 60, 61, 70

Pahlavi dynasty (1925–79), 19–20 basketball in, 1, 6, 55, 59, 63, 66,
Persepolis FC, 195 67–9
physical education in, 19–20, 26 Betar Jerusalem, 57, 59–65, 67, 69,
Qajar dynasty (1789–1925), 15 70, 72
Qatar, relations with, 201 citizenship in, 57, 59, 64, 71–2
social media, 7, 95, 97–8, 101, Education and Social Project in, 63
103–4 establishment of (1948), 43, 51–2,
WhiteWednesday hashtag, 97–8 59
women in, 28, 77, 90, 97–8, 101, EuroBasket (2017), 1, 181
103–4 Faisali FC and, 51
wrestling in, 149 La Familia, 62, 70
Iraq, 16, 17, 29, 34, 38, 173 female footballers, 78, 88
British Mandate (1920–32), 47 football in, 6, 55–72, 78
Gulf War (1990–91), 171 Gaza withdrawal (2005), 66
Pan-Arab Games (1997), 171, 180 General Zionists, 58
Germanophobia in, 6, 55, 68
Irbid, Jordan, 50–51, 52
Hapoel Tel Aviv, 6, 55–72
Ireland, 200
Herut, 58, 60
Irgun, 59, 62
Histadrut, 58
Isfahan, Iran, 20, 22
Holocaust and, 6, 56, 66–70
Islam, 2, 3
Immigration and Population Au-
Betar Jerusalem and, 61–2
thority, 63
dress code, 78, 81, 83–4
Intifada, First (1987–93), 45
modesty and, 83–4
Intifada, Second (2000–5), 65
Muhammad, Prophet of Islam, 62, Jerusalem Day, 65
118 Jordan–Israel peace treaty (1994), 46
shariʿa, 79 Kach, 62
Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham Knesset, 65, 67
(ISIS), 194 Lebanon War (1982–5), 51, 177
Ismailia, Egypt, 16 Likud, 58, 60
Israel, 2, 13, 55–72 Maccabi Haifa, 63
African immigrants in, 63 Maccabi Tel Aviv, 56, 58, 67–9
anti-Arabism in, 61–3 Mapai, 60
anti-nationalism in, 6, 56, 59, 65–6, May Day parades, 59
69, 72 Mizrahim, 60, 61, 62, 69, 70
anti-racism in, 6, 55, 63–4 Operation Grapes of Wrath (1996),
Arab athletes in, 61–2, 63 173
Arab citizens, 55, 60 Oslo process (1993–5), 42, 46, 48
Arab–Israeli War (1948–9), 43, PLO, relations with, 43
51–2 secularism in, 6, 56, 59, 64, 69,
arsim, 69 70–72

271
 INDEX

Six-Day War (1967), 43, 65, 71 Betar Jerusalem, 57, 59–65, 67, 69,
socialism in, 6, 55, 57–8, 59, 60 70, 72
Suez Crisis (1956), 158 Constitutional School, 20
al-Tira, destruction of (1948), 51–2 Dome of the Rock, 51
ultra-Orthodoxy in, 64, 69, 70 Flourishing Literature Association,
Wailing Wall, 65, 72 16–17
West Bank settlements, 61, 71 football in, 33, 34
Zionism in, 39, 57–8, 64, 65, 66, 67, Hapoel Tel Aviv and, 65, 68
70, 71 Hashemites and, 50–51
Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), 56, Herod’s Gate, 33
69 Jordanian East Jerusalem (1948–
Istanbul, Turkey, 38 67), 65
Anatolia College, 20, 21 Wailing Wall, 65, 72
British people in, 15 Wihdat–Hussein rivalry and, 50–51
Cumhuriyet, 31 Yad Vashem, 69
European Capital of Sport (2012), Jerusalem Day, 65
139 Jerusalem Post, 172
football in, 1, 8, 34 Jewish people, Judaism, 17, 21
Girls’ High School, 27, 28 Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU),
Grand Prix, 139, 144 21
Marathon, 140 Holocaust, 6, 56, 66–70
as nodal city, 38 ultra-Orthodoxy, 64, 69, 70
Robert College, 20, 21 Zionism, 39, 57–8, 64, 65, 66, 67,
sporting store, 32 70, 71
sports facilities, 142 see also Israel
Takhidromos, 31 Johnson, Daniel, 150
UEFA Champions League Final Jordan, 2, 5–6, 41–54
(2005), 1, 8 Adwan tribe, 47
Italy, 11, 58, 149 Allenby Bridge, 53
Izmir, Turkey, 16 Arab uprisings (2011), 49, 51
badu, 52–3
Jacob, Wilson, 25 Bedouin, 2, 5, 47, 51, 52
Jaffa, 16, 31 British protectorate (1921–46),
el-Jaish SC, 199 46–7
Jam‘iyat al-Adab al-Zahra, 16 civil war (1970), 42, 43, 44, 45, 48,
Jam‘iyat al-Shuban al-Muslimin, 18, 19 54
Jamaica, 8, 148, 158–9 crowd violence in, 45, 49, 50, 51
Japan, 8, 166, 174, 190, 200 darak, 50
Jawhariyyeh, Wasif, 20 al-Difftain, 45
al-Jazeera, 7, 108, 118, 196 Education and Social Project in, 63
Jerusalem, 14, 16, 38, 50–51 East Bank, 6, 42, 43–4, 45, 46–54

272
 INDEX

fallah, 52, 53 Khuri-Makdisi, Ilham, 38

football in, 5–6, 44–54, 171, 180 Kimmerling, Baruch, 71
Faisali FC, 6, 45, 46–51, 53 Kissoudi, Penelope, 124
elections in, 45, 48, 49 Kiviaho, Pekka, 150
hadar, 52–3 Knez, Kelly, 74, 82
Hashemites, 6, 46, 50–51 Koyagi, Mikiya, 28
al-Hussein SC, 50–51, 52 Krakow, Poland, 114
Israel–Jordan peace treaty (1994), Kuper, Gerard, 150
46 Kurdish language, 3
martial law abolished (1991), 48 Kuwait, 9
monarchy, 47–9 GCC membership, 184
National Committee for Retired Gulf War (1990–91), 171
Officers, 49 Lebanon, relations with, 177
Pan-Arab Games (1997), 171, 180 Pan-Arab Games (1997), 171
Pan-Arab Games (1999), 176 social media in, 7, 95, 100–101, 103
al-Wihdat refugee camp, 42, 43, 44, women in, 7, 95, 100–101, 103
46, 50, 51
al-Wihdat SC, 5–6, 42, 44–6, 48–54 Ladino, 19, 20, 30
Palestinians, 2, 5–6, 41–6, 47, Latouche, Daniel, 141
48–54 Latvia, 182
PLO in, 43, 44, 48 Le Renard, Amelie, 86
That Ras Club, 53–4 League of Arab Nations, 171, 177
ultras in, 50, 51 Lebanon, 2, 3, 4, 8–9, 147–63, 165–82
UNRWA in, 44, 52 al-Abtal readership, 29
West Bank, control of, 43, 45, 65 AFC Asian Cup (2000), 166–82
Jöreskog, Karl Gustav, 150 American University, 20, 21
Josoor Institute, 117, 191, 197 Antonine University, 170
Jour, Le, 31 athletics in, 157
judo, 139 basketball in, 8, 157, 166–82
Justice and Development Party, 8, 123, Basketball Federation, 170, 171,
125, 127–45 176, 178
Jyllands-Posten, 118 boxing in, 157
civil war (1975–90), 148, 159, 165,
Kach, 62 171, 172, 174, 176, 180
kafala, 7, 111, 121, 168, 197 Constitution, 159
Karate World Clubs Cup, 139 corruption in, 161, 162, 179
al-Karma, 29 cycling in, 157, 170
Kazakhstan, 114, 183 FIBA and, 8, 166–82
Keihan-e varzeshi, 23 FIFA and, 8, 157, 174
Khedivate of Egypt (1867–1914), 15 football in, 8, 21–2, 157, 166–82
Khoury, Tareq, 50 Football Federation, 157, 178

273
 INDEX

France, relations with, 177 weightlifting in, 157

Francophone Games (2009), wrestling in, 157
166–81 Lehi, 59
French Mandate (1923–46), 172 Lekhwiya SC, 199
Future Movement, 175 Liberty Media, 195
Iran, relations with, 175 Libya, 173, 201
Israel War (1982–5), 51, 177 Liebman, Charles, 71
Le Jour, 31 Likud, 58, 60
Kuwait, relations with, 177 Liu Hon-Kwong, 150
March 8 bloc, 175 London, England
March 14 bloc, 175 1948 Olympic Games, 148
Mediterranean Games (1959), 166, 2012 Olympic Games, 79, 136, 151,
171, 172 156
Ministry of Finance, 170 2017 World Athletics Champion-
Ministry of Sport, 9 ship, 159
Ministry of Youth and Sport, 9, 160, Lusail, Qatar, 196
161, 162 Lycée Français, Alexandria, 22
al-Nahar, 31
Notre Dame University, 170 maalesh spirit, 36
Olympic Committee, 157–8, 160, Maccabi clubs, 17
161–2, 170, 179 Maccabi Haifa, 63
Olympic Games and, 8, 147–8, Maccabi Jewish Sports and Literary
157–8, 159–63 Union, 17
Olympic Stadium, 178–9, 181 Maccabi Tel Aviv, 56, 58, 67–9
Operation Grapes of Wrath (1996), al-Madrasa al-Dusturiyya, Jerusalem, 20
173 Mahmood, Saba, 77, 83, 90
Pan-Arab Games in, 165–80 Mak, Lanver, 15
Parliamentary Committee of Youth Mäkelä, Pekka, 150
and Sport, 161, 162 al-Maktoum, Mohammed bin Rashid,
physical education in, 20, 21–2 200
Saudi Arabia, relations with, 175, Malaysia, 190
177 al-Manar TV, 175
skiing in, 157 Manchester Arena bombing (2017),
Sport Strategy 2010–2020, 9 194
Sports City Stadium, 176, 177, 178, Manchester City FC, 1, 184, 203
179, 180 Mapai, 60
Suez Crisis (1956), 158 marathons, 140
swimming in, 157 Marmnamarz, 23
Syrian Protestant College, 20, 21–2 Marsovan, Turkey, 20
United States, relations with, 172 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
volleyball in, 157 (MIT), 14

274
 INDEX

Maximenko, A.M., 150 Nassif, Nadim, 175

May Day, 59 National Committee for Retired Of-
McDonald, David, 52 ficers, 49
McDonald’s, 53 National Iranian Front, 149
McDowell, Matthew, 168 National Olympic Committees
Mediterranean Games, 140, 166, 171, (NOCs), 151, 153, 166
172 Nazism, 6, 56, 66–70
al-Medmar, 23 New London House, Cairo, 32
Megheirkouni, Majd, 173 New York Times, 11
Melbourne Summer Olympics (1956), Neymar, 202
149 Nielsen Sports, 188
Milan, AC, 184, 188 Niger, 173
missionaries, 15, 18, 20–22, 38 Nike, 100, 101
Mitchell, Claire, 70 Nimni, Avi, 68
Mitchell, Jocelyn Sage, 79, 89 nodal cities, 38
Mizrahi, Shimon, 68 Nohad Nawfal Sports Complex, Zouq
Mizrahim, 60, 61, 62, 70 Mkayel, 178
modesty, 83–4 Northern Ireland, 70
Moharrak, Raha, 104 Northwestern University, 117, 122
Mont La Salle, 175 Norway, 114, 153
Moosa, Imad, 150 Notre Dame University, 170
morality, 25–6 Novikov, A.D., 150
Morocco, 149 Nye, Joseph, 110, 167–8, 169, 187
Mount Everest, 104
mountaineering, 95, 101, 103, 104 Observer, The, 174
Moza bint Nasser, 78 oil, 184, 185, 188, 198, 199
Mu‘awiyya Club, 33 Olick, Jeffrey, 42
Muhammad, Prophet of Islam, 62, 118 Olympic Charter, 112–13, 116
mulukhiya, 43, 53–4 Olympic Games, 108, 110, 112–14,
Mumtalakat Holding Company, 189 116, 120–21, 141, 147–8
Munich, Germany, 114 1920 Antwerp Summer Olympics,
al-Muntada al-Riyadi, 16 35
al-Muqtataf, 28 1926 Paris Summer Olympics, 36
1928 Amsterdam Summer Olym-
al-Nadi al-Yunani Por Said, 17–18 pics, 35
al-Nahar, 31 1948 London Summer Olympics,
nahda, 13–14, 22, 33, 36, 38, 39 148
al-Nahyan, Mansour bin Zayed, 184 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics,
Nakba (1948), 51–2 149
Namibia, 109, 149 1960 Rome Summer Olympics, 149,
Nasser, Gamal Abdul, 172 162

275
 INDEX

1988 Seoul Summer Olympics, 141 cuisine, 53

1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics, Education and Social Project in, 63
148 Fatah, 43, 50
1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics, female footballers, 78, 88
150, 157 fida’iyun, 45, 51
2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, 7, Filastin, 31
108, 120–21, 125, 136, 166 Gaza, 45, 48, 66, 71
2011 European Youth Summer grass plants and, 52, 53
Olympic Festival, 139 Hamas, 52
2012 London Summer Olympics, Intifada, First (1987–93), 45
79, 136, 151, 156 Intifada, Second (2000–5), 65
2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, 7, in Jordan, 2, 5–6, 41–6, 47, 48–54
114, 121, 153 mulukhiya, 43, 53–4
2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olym- Nakba (1948), 43, 51–2
pics, 80, 125, 136, 137, 148, 150, Oslo process (1993–5), 42, 46, 48
153, 166 Palestinian Authority, establishment
2017 Samsun Summer Deaflympics,
of (1994), 54
140; European Youth Winter
PLO, 43, 44, 46, 48
Olympic Festival, 139
Six-Day War (1967), 43, 65, 71
2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, 109
West Bank, 43, 45, 48, 50, 61, 71
2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, 114,
al-Wihdat refugee camp, 42, 43, 44,
125, 166
46, 50, 51
Olympic Stadium, Tripoli, 178–9, 181
al-Wihdat SC, 5–6, 42, 44–6, 48–54
Oman, 9, 184, 191, 202
YMMA in, 18
Oolaa, 84
Palestine Liberation Organization
Operation Grapes of Wrath (1996),
173 (PLO), 43, 44, 46, 48
L’Orient, 31 Palestinian Authority, 54
Orwell, George, 147 Pan-Arab Games, 165–80
Oslo process (1993–5), 42, 46, 48 Paris, France
Oslo, Norway, 114 ISIS attacks (2015), 194
Ottoman Empire (1299–1922), 15, 16, Olympic Games (1926), 36
19, 25, 47 Paris Saint-Germain FC, 1, 187, 188,
Ottoman Turkish language, 19, 25 196, 202
Özak, Faruk, 129, 142 parkour, 104
Özbilen, Önder, 134 Peled, Yoav, 57
permission zones, 56, 57, 70
Palestine, Palestinians, 2, 5, 13, 41–6, Persepolis FC, 195
71 Pershin, Vitaly, 150
Allenby Bridge, 53 Persian language, 3, 19, 20, 24, 25, 28,
British Mandate (1920–48), 16, 36, 30, 38
43, 59 Philippines, 176

276
 INDEX

photographs, 29–30 būyāt in, 85–6

physical education, 14–22 Challenge 22 initiative, 197
in Egypt, 12, 19, 20, 22–3 Constitution (1971), 118
in Iran, 19–20, 26 cycling in, 199
in Lebanon, 20 Doha Center for Media Freedom,
in Turkey, 8, 126, 127, 131, 134, 118
135–6, 142–3 al-Duhail SC, 199
piracy, 194 Education City, 4, 75–6, 87–90
Poland, 182 exposure in, 83–4
political correctness, 55, 56 family in, 81, 82–3, 84, 89
polo, 15 female footballers in, 6, 73–91
Port Said, Egypt, 16, 17–18, 29 femininity in, 84–6
Present State of the Egyptians, The FIFA and, 80, 83–4
(Umar), 16 FIFA World Cup (2022), see Qatar
press freedom, 3, 7, 107–10, 117–22 World Cup
Prince Farouk Cup, 34, 35 football, introduction of, 80
professionalization, 58, 143 Football Association, 80
Protestantism, 18, 39 football teams, acquisition of, 1, 9,
Puma, 101 111, 187
Putin, Vladimir, 114, 121 foreign descended players, 81
Foreign Information Agency, 118
Q-League, 80 Formula One in, 189
al-Qabas, 31 free expression in, 7, 107–10,
Qajar Iran (1789–1925), 15 117–22
Qatar, 2, 3, 9, 73–91, 107–22, 185–7, futsal, 89
189, 191 GCC membership, 184
Advisory Council, 118 gender segregation in, 76, 79, 81,
AFC Champions League in, 195, 83–4, 87
199 Georgetown University, 4
ambassador withdrawal crisis Hamad bin Khalifa University, 87
(2014), 195 handball in, 198, 203
Asian Games (2014), 84 horseracing in, 200
Aspetar, 186 human rights in, 107–9, 111,
Bahrain, relations with, 195 112–15, 117, 197
basketball in, 84, 89 IAAF World Championships
BeIn Sport, 196 (2019), 114, 186
blockade (2017–), 108, 119, 121, Iran, relations with, 201
122, 195, 196, 201 International Centre for Sports
British protectorate (1916–71), 80, Security (ICSS), 186, 193
188 al-Jazeera, 7, 108, 118, 196
Burrda Sport, 187, 192 Josoor Institute, 117, 191, 197

277
 INDEX

kafala, 7, 111, 121, 168, 197 women’s dress code in, 78, 81
Lusail, 196 Women’s Sports Committee
marriage in, 84–5 (QWSC), 74, 80
media laws, 118–19 World Athletics Championships
Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heri- (2019), 109
tage, 118 World Handball Championship
National Basketball team, 84 (2015), 203
National Development Strategy, Qatar World Cup (2022), 1, 4, 7, 74,
78, 79 107–22, 125, 166, 186, 203
National Football team, 75, 80, blockade and, 108, 121, 196
83–4, 86 budget, 199
national sports day, 190 climate and, 111, 197
National Vision 2030, 79, 184, free expression and, 7, 107–10,
185–6, 190 117–22
Northwestern University, 117, 122 human rights and, 107–9, 111,
Oolaa, 84 112–15, 117, 197
Pan-Arab Games (2011), 173 kafala and, 7, 111, 121, 168, 197
Paris Saint-Germain and, 1, 187, 202 security and, 193–4
piracy in, 194 women and, 74–5, 79, 87
Q-League, 80 Qatar Airways, 187, 195
Qatar Airways, 187, 195 Qatar Foundation, 118
Qatar Foundation, 118 Qatar Sports Investments (QSI),
Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), 186–7
186–7 Qatar University, 75–6, 117
Qatar University, 75–6, 117 Quebec, 173
rentier economy, 187
Ruggie report (2016), 111, 113, 117 racism, 6, 55, 63–4, 113
Saudi Arabia, relations with, 108, Radio Free Asia, 120
119, 121, 122, 195 Ram, Uri, 64–5
Shura Council, 79 Ramadan, Mazen, 160
social media in, 97 Ramallah, West Bank, 50
Sports Sector Strategy, 79, 184, Rania, Queen consort of Jordan, 48–9
185–6 Rathke, Alexander, 150
Stars League, 80 Real Madrid, 184, 188, 192
Supreme Committee for Delivery Reebok, 100, 101
and Legacy, 87, 117 referees, 35
Tour of Qatar, 199 Regev, Daniel, 63, 65
tourism, 189 rentier economies, 187
Turkey, relations with, 201 Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), 108,
UAE, relations with, 108, 195–6 109, 118, 121
university teams in, 86–90 Rimon-Or, Anat, 67

278
 INDEX

Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics football in, 174, 192, 195, 199
(2016), 80, 125, 136, 137, 148, 150, GCC membership, 184
153, 166 IAmMyOwnGuardian hashtag, 98
al-riyada, 25 al-Jazeera and, 108
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 86 Lebanon, relations with, 175, 177
Robbins, Joyce, 42 Ministry of Youth and Sports, 101
Robert College, Istanbul, 20, 21 Pan-Arab Games (1997), 171
Rogge, Jacques, 120–21 Qatar, relations with, 108, 119, 121,
Romania, 181 122, 195
Rome Summer Olympics (1960), 149, Raha Moharrak summits Everest
162 (2013), 104
Rose, Flemming, 118 social media in, 7, 95, 97, 98, 101,
Rowe, David, 172, 178 103, 104
Royal Air Force (RAF), 35 Vision 2030, 185–6
rugby, 117, 188 women in, 7, 79, 86, 98, 101, 103
Ruggie, John, 111, 113, 117 Say No to Racism, 113
Russia al-Sayid ‘Abd al-Wahed, 30, 31
2014 Winter Olympics, 7, 114, 121,
Scimago Journal & Country Rank, 155
153
Scopus, 156
2018 FIFA World Cup, 108, 109,
Searle, Glen, 141
114, 115, 117, 119, 166
Sehlikoglu, Sertaç, 77
see also Soviet Union
self-branding, 7, 99–104
Senegal, 149
Şa Şa Şa, 23
Seoul Summer Olympics (1988), 141
Sadiq, Issa Khan, 20
Sephardim, 60
Şahin, Mehmet Ali, 129, 135, 143
al-Shaab Cultural & Sports Club, 200
Saida, Lebanon, 177, 178
al-Sakakini, Khalil, 16, 20 Shabab al-Ahli Dubai FC, 199
Sakhir, Bahrain, 196 Shafir, Gershon, 57
Salame, Jihad, 162 shariʿa, 79
Samaranch, Juan Antonio, 174 Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, 200
Samoa, 109 shyness, 83–4
Samsun Summer Deaflympics (2017), Sidon, Lebanon, 177, 178
140 Silva, Luis Henrique Rolim, 171
São Paulo, Brazil, 29 Six-Day War (1967), 43, 65, 71
Saudi Arabia, 9, 185–6, 191 60 Minutes, 108
AFC Champions League in, 195 skateboarding, 104
al-Ahli FC, 192, 195 skiing, 28, 157
AFC Asian Cup (2000), 174 Skillen, Fiona, 168
būyāt in, 86 Sleiman, Michel, 174
Council of Economic and Develop- Sllah Shabati, 62
ment Affairs, 199 Smith, Lee, 150

279
 INDEX

SnapChat, 95, 98 football in, 33, 171–2, 180

snowboarding, 104 French Mandate (1923–46), 172
Sobh, Rana, 89 Mu‘awiyya Club, 33
Sochi Winter Olympics (2014), 7, 114, Pan-Arab Games (1997), 171–2,
121, 153 180
social media, 7, 93–105, 115, 193 al-Qabas, 31
social memory, 41–2 refugees from, 138
socialism, 6, 55, 57–8, 59, 60 sports clubs in, 16, 17
soft disempowerment, 110–11 wrestling in, 29
soft power, 110, 166, 167–8, 169, 173, Syrian Protestant College, Beirut, 20,
187–8, 196 21–2
Sokolovsky, Gal, 65
South Africa, 109, 125, 166, 178 Ta‘lim va Tarbiyat, 28
South Korea, 8, 141 Tadamon Zouk, 178
Soviet Union (1922–91), 149, 172 taekwondo, 136
Spain, 130, 153, 184, 188, 192 Takhidromos, 31
SPLISS (Sport Policies Leading to Takhti, Gholamreza, 149
International Sport Success), 149, Tamim bin Hamad, Emir of Qatar, 108
151–2, 161, 163 Tanta, Egypt, 16, 29
Spor Alemi, 23, 25, 27, 28, 32, 36, 37 Tarsus, Turkey, 20
sports awakening, see nahda al-Tauqui, Mansour, 176, 177
Sports City Stadium, Beirut, 176, 177, Tcha, Moonjoong, 150
178, 179, 180 TEB BNP Paribas WTA Champion-
St Paul Institute, Tarsus, 20 ships, 139, 140
stadiums, 33 Tehran, Iran, 14, 15, 17, 20, 38, 39
Sterken, Elmer, 150 Tel Aviv, Israel, 64–5
Sternhall, Ze’ev, 57 Hapoel Tel Aviv, 6, 55–72
Stewart, Kenda, 78, 88 Maccabi Tel Aviv, 56, 58, 67–9
Stockholm, Sweden, 114 May Day parades, 59
subversive accommodation, 73, 77, 90 mayor of, 59
Sudan, 63, 120 Yad Eliahu, 68–9
Suen Wing Chuen, 150 tennis, 15, 125, 138, 139, 140, 188
Suez Crisis (1956), 158 terrorism, 194, 196
Sultan’s Cup, 33 al-Thani, Tamim bin Hamad, 108
surfing, 95, 104 That Ras Club, 53–4
Surinam, 109 Tiananmen Square massacre (1989),
swimming, 28, 157, 192 120
Switzerland, 114, 182 Tibet, 120
Syria, 29, 31, 33, 173 al-Tira, Haifa, 51–2
al-Abtal readership, 29 Tokyo Summer Olympics (2020), 109
civil war (2011–), 51, 173, 201 track and field, 126

280
 INDEX

trade unions, 58 Law on Betting and Lottery Games

Transparency International, 179 in Soccer and Other Sports
Tripoli SC, 178 (2007), 129–30
Tripoli, Lebanon, 177, 178–9, 181 Law on Education of the Body
Tuama, Salim, 61–2 (1938), 126
Tunisia, 97, 149 Law on the Organization and Duties
Tunisian Girl, A (Ben Mhenni), 97 of the General Directorate of
Turkey, 2, 3, 7–8, 13, 123–45 Sports (1986), 132
archery in, 140 Law on Prevention of Violence and
Asian Winter Games (2011), 139 Disorder in Sports (2011), 130
athletics in, 140 Law on Municipalities (2005), 138
basketball in, 8, 21, 27, 137, 139, Mediterranean Games (2013), 140
140, 142, 181 Ministry of National Education, 127
Cumhuriyet, 31 Ministry of Sports, 124, 128, 129,
Constitution (1982), 126 138
Construct, Donate and Cut Your Ministry of Youth and Sports, 127,
Tax Expenses, 135
129, 134
cycling in, 140
National Olympic Committee, 125,
doping in, 131, 132, 134
127, 134, 135
EuroBasket (2017), 181
National Youth and Sport Policy
European Capital of Sport (2012),
Paper (2013), 131
139
and Olympic Games, 8, 123, 124,
football in, 1, 8, 18, 25, 34, 136, 137,
125, 127, 131, 132, 134–5,
140
136–42
Football Federation, 136
National Paralympic Committee,
General Directorate of Sports, 127,
128, 129, 138 127
golf in, 140 physical education in, 8, 126, 127,
Grand Prix, 139 131, 134, 135–6, 142–3
Gross National Product, 127 Qatar, relations with, 201
gymnastics in, 126, 140 refugees in, 138
handball in, 137 Special Projects, 138
Iddaa, 8, 129–30 Spor Toto, 127, 129, 137–8
judo in, 139 sports clubs in, 18, 130, 142
Justice and Development Party, 8, State Planning Organization, 126
123, 125, 127–45 swimming in, 140
karate in, 139 Takhidromos, 31
Law on Associations (2004), 130, Taekwondo Federation, 136
131 tennis in, 125, 138, 139, 142
Law on Authorization of Fed- UEFA Champions League Final
erations for Sport Management (2005), 1, 8, 139
(2004), 129 Universiade in, 139

281
 INDEX

volleyball in, 137, 139, 140 Shabab al-Ahli Dubai FC, 199
weightlifting in, 139 Sharjah FC, 199–200
women in, 27, 28 social media in, 7, 95, 97, 101, 103,
wrestling in, 136 104
Turkish Airlines Ladies Open, 140 tourism, 185
Turkish language, 3, 19, 20, 24, 25, 28, women in, 101, 103, 104
30, 38 Yas Island, 196
Türkiye İdman Mecmuası, 23 Yas Sports, 196
Twitter, 93, 95, 97, 98, 101, 115 United Kingdom, 186
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
Ukraine, 182 (1908–54), 15
ultras British Broadcasting Corporation
in Israel, 58–9, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68, (BBC), 120
70, 72 Chatham House, 108
in Jordan, 50, 51 civilizing process in, 56
‘Umar, Muhammad, 16, 36 Egypt, occupation of (1882–1923),
15–16, 31
Union Juive Sportive et Litteraire Mac-
elite sport policy, 151
chabée, 17
FIFA World Cup 2022 bid, 111
Union of European Football Associa-
football in, 1, 15, 111, 184
tions (UEFA), 1, 139, 182
funding for sport, 124
United Arab Emirates, 2, 9, 191, 195
horseracing in, 200
Arab Youth Media Initiative, 97
Iraq Mandate (1920–32), 47
British protectorate (1820–1971),
Jordan protectorate (1921–46),
188
46–7
Dubai Sports, 196 journalists arrested in Qatar, 112
Economic Vision 2030, 185 Manchester Arena bombing (2017),
Emirates Airlines, 184, 187–8 194
Equestrian Federation, 200 Olympic Games (1948), 148
Etihad Airways, 187 Olympic Games (2012), 79, 136,
Ferrari World, 189 151, 156
football in, 199 Palestine Mandate (1920–48), 16,
football teams, acquisition of, 1, 9, 36, 43, 59
184 Premier League, 1, 184, 188, 203
Formula One in, 1, 184, 189, 195 Qatar protectorate (1916–71), 80,
GCC membership, 184 188
horseracing in, 200 Royal Air Force (RAF), 35
human rights in, 203 Suez Crisis (1956), 158
al-Jazeera and, 108 Trucial States (1820–1971), 188
Manchester City acquisition, 1, 184 World Athletics Championship
Qatar, relations with, 108, 195–6 (2017), 159
rentier economy, 187 United Nations

282
 INDEX

Educational, Scientific and Cultural virtual private networks (VPNs), 120

Organization (UNESCO), 118 Vittorio Emmanuel III, King of Italy, 11
Guiding Principles on Business and volleyball, 27, 28, 137, 139, 140, 157
Human Rights, 113
High Commissioner for Refugees, Waitt, Gordon, 141
113 Walker, Francis, 14
International Covenant on Civil Washington Wizards, 176
and Political Rights (1966), 112 water security, 194
International Labour Organization, weightlifting, 139, 157
113, 197 West Bank, 43, 45, 48, 50, 61, 71
Office of the High Commissioner Whannel, Gary, 74
for Human Rights, 113 Whitson, David, 141
Relief and Works Agency for Pal- al-Wihdat refugee camp, Amman, 42,
estine Refugees in the Near East 43, 44, 46, 50, 51
(UNRWA), 44, 52 al-Wihdat SC, 5–6, 42, 44–6, 48–54
Universal Declaration of Human Winter Olympics, see under Olympic
Rights (1948), 113
Games
United States, 186
WISE (Women, Institutionalization,
American University in Beirut, 20,
Specialization, Early Learning), 149,
21
151, 152–3
American University in Cairo, 20,
Woitek, Ulrich, 150
22, 23
women, 2, 3, 27–8, 37, 73–91, 93–105
Atlanta Summer Olympics (1996),
in Egypt, 28, 77, 103
150, 157
basketball in, 176 in Iran, 28, 77, 90, 97–8, 101, 103–4
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in Israel, 78, 88
155 in Kuwait, 7, 95, 100–101, 103
Cold War, 149, 172 media and, 27–8, 93–105
elite sport policy, 151 in Qatar, 6, 73–91
FIFA corruption investigations, in Saudi Arabia, 79, 98, 101, 103
111, 114 social media and, 7, 93–105
FIFA World Cup 2022 bid, 1 in Turkey, 27, 28
Lebanon, relations with, 172 in United Arab Emirates, 101, 103,
press freedom in, 109 104
Universal Declaration of Human Women’s Tennis Association (WTA),
Rights (1948), 113 139, 140
Universiade, 139 ‘Workers of the World Unite’, 55
World Archery Championships, 140
Valke, Jerome, 114 World Athletics Championships, 109,
Van der Tak, Casper, 150, 157 159
Van Tuyckom, Charlotte, 150 World Cup, see FIBA World Cup;
Velappan, Dato, 175 FIFA World Cup
Velappan, Peter, 177 World Handball Championship, 203

283
 INDEX

World Press Freedom Index, 108 Yemen, 2, 173

World Rhythmic Gymnastics Champi- Young Men’s Christian Association
onships, 140 (YMCA), 18, 22
World Weightlifting Championships Young Men’s Muslim Association
2011 (YMMA), 18, 19, 39
World Wrestling Championships, 139 YouTube, 57, 115, 193
wrestling, 18, 19, 29, 39, 126, 136, 149,
157 Zaida, Lebanon, 177, 178
Zarqa, Jordan, 49
Yad Eliahu, Tel Aviv, 68–9 Zheng Jinming, 151, 156
Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 69 Zimbalist, Andrew, 141
Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, 196 Zionism, 39, 57–8, 64, 65, 66, 67, 70,
Yas Sports, 196 71
Yassin family, 49 Zouq Mkayel, Lebanon, 178

284