Column: Mid East Musings
A running commentary on developments in the Middle East and North Africa often through the prism of soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University and author of the blog The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.
Qatar to legalize trade unions as Saudi Arabia pushes for closer Gulf cooperation
Qatar, in a bid to fend off an international trade union campaign against its hosting of the 2022 World Cup, is taking...
Turkey and Tehran: Caught between a rock and a hard place
Turkey’s besting Iran in the contest for the hearts and minds of advocates of change in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa is proving to be both...
UAE cancels football match over disputed islands amid mounting tension with Iran
Increasingly strained relations between Iran and oil-rich Arab Gulf states spilled on to the football pitch this weekend...
The struggle for Syria: Iran-Qatar ties come under stress
Relations between Iran and Qatar, once the closest across the Persian Gulf next to Oman, have deteriorated in recent months to the point that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad...
Collaboration with Mubarak costs Vodafone football sponsorship and fans
Little did Vodafone’s Egypt unit know what it was bargaining for when it inked a three-year $9 million sponsorship deal with Al Ahly...
Conservative Saudi crown prince endorses female participation in Olympics
Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud has approved plans for the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom to send female athletes...
Syrian TV accuses FC Barcelona of aiding rebels
State-run Syrian Al Dunya television, in one of its more bizarre parroting of allegations of foreign intervention by embattled President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, has accused crowned Spanish...
Alcohol debate shines light on divisions in Qatari society
Delegates to a high-powered international sports security conference had a glimpse this week of Qatar's internal debate about how far the Gulf state should go in meeting...
In-depth: Crooning goalkeeper leads Homs protests
Abdelbasset Saroot's promising future as a goalkeeper dims as Syrian forces encroach ever more on opposition strongholds in the battered city of Homs. A 20-year old player for Syria's national...
Port Said deaths send businessmen, politicians and clerics scrambling
The deaths of 74 militant football fans in a politically loaded football brawl in the Egyptian Suez Canal city of Port Said has political forces...
EFA clean-up unlikely to satisfy Egypt’s ultras as they attack interior ministry in Cairo
A decision by Egypt’s Attorney General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud to bar fired Egyptian Football...
Egyptian football fans play into the hands of the military
Efforts by the Egyptian military and security forces to exploit Wednesday’s football tragedy in Port Said in which 79 people were killed threaten to back fire with...
Turkish football crisis highlights battle lines in Turkey's ruling party
Turkey's football federation has rejected a proposed rule change that would have prevented teams found guilty of match-fixing from being...Egypt One Year On: Stark Message for Arab Revolutionaries
EGYPT’S MILITARY council, backed by Islamist and secular political parties, has upstaged the 25 January celebrations of the anniversary of the protests that ousted President Hosni Mubarak even before the party gets underway.
Other Face of Tahrir
It was mid-afternoon on Saturday, the second day of mass protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to demand an end to military rule, when a cry went out for help from the ultras, Egypt’s militant, violence-prone, highly politicized football fans.
Saudi Arabia to send token woman to Olympics to evade sanctions
The decision however is likely to prove less controversial in Qatar than Saudi Arabia.Syrian goalkeeper emerges as protest leader in embattled city of Homs
The goalkeeper of the Syrian national under-23 soccer team as well as for the Al Karama soccer club in Homs, a focal point of the eight-month old uprising against embattled President Bashar al-Assad, is emerging as a leader of the protests in the city’s Al Bayyadh district. Abdelbasset Saroot appeared briefly on Saturday on Al Jazeera...Mounting Israeli-Iranian Tension: Turkey in the Middle
Senior Turkish officials reiterated at the Istanbul Forum recently their refusal to reverse their downgrading of diplomatic relations with Israel to the level of second secretary and their suspension of all military cooperation as long as Israel fails to apologise and offer compensation for the death of the Turkish activists and maintains its blockade of Gaza.Israeli MP drafts legislation obliging players to recognize Israel as a Jewish state
Proposed legislation by extreme nationalist Israeli parliamentarian Michael Ben-Ari that would require members of Israeli national sport teams to sing the national anthem and recognise Israel as a Jewish state threatens to weaken the country’s soccer team and further isolate Israel internationally. Mr....
Dubai bank launches first football hedge fund despite mounting fan opposition
Dubai’s United Investment Bank has launched the region’s first alternative investment football fund modelled on...
Islamists fare well in an Arab world in revolt
Islamists emerged from Tunisia’s first post-revolt election as the country’s foremost political force set to play a key role in drafting the country’s new constitution.
Israel and Hamas: More in common than meets the eye
History may be repeating itself in the Middle East conflict with Israeli and Palestinian hardliners rather than moderates serving each other's purpose.
Social media gives protesters one up on Arab autocrats
If there is one event or region that has highlighted the impact of technology and social media on policymaking, social movements and protest, it is the Arab revolt that has...Middle Eastern power struggle threatens Arab popular revolt
An allegedly Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington has brought into sharp relief the threat posed to the popular revolt sweeping the Middle East and North Africa posed by a momentous power struggle that pits the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel against Iran. The murky plot that US officials admit has the makings of a Hollywood...Bahrain and Iran at loggerheads on and off the pitch
World soccer body FIFA has appointed a security expert to monitor next week’s politically loaded 2014 World Cup qualifier between Bahrain and Iran in the Iranian capital Teheran. The October 11 match is scheduled take place amid continued tension in Bahrain in the wake of this year’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters. The protests pit a majority of the Gulf...Advertisment
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Image Of The Week: A Palestinian protestor holds a banner and a photo of a relative
Demonstration in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails outside the Massiyahu Prison in Ramle, near Tel Aviv, May 3. Israel has so far rejected all appeals lodged by the hunger strikers.
