Football Feud, Iraqi Style
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For the children, let's leave politics out of football.
The joga bonito of football is one of the few national events that has united Iraq's waring sects in recent years. Composed of Sunnis and Shias the national team's victories have lead to solidarity celebrations in Baghdad and elsewhere.
And those victories have been impressive. Iraq won the 2007 Asian Cup Game and in 2004 it had a strong showing in the Olympics. And last year, the national league hosted its first ever international game in Iraq since the war. The Palestinians had the honor. FIFA still rules that Iraq is too dangerous to play games in, however.
But recently the league has become mired by the sectarian warfare that has rattled Iraq so severely and been do deadly"
[I]n November, a column of armoured police cars turned up at the headquarters of the Iraqi Football Association in eastern Baghdad. Uniformed men stormed the building, setting up sandbagged machinegun positions. They were acting on the orders of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, which is in the hands of Iraq’s Shia-dominated government. The Football Association is still run mainly by Sunnis. Its directors were accused of irregularities by the government and asked to give up control. When they refused, the army moved in.
The accusations are false and simply a Shia power grab in a politics views through the paradigm of sectarianism and zero-sum. This is unfortunate and does not bode will for the future of the country if even sports are destroyed by sectarian political greed. And certainly the Sunnis have no incentive to work within a new Iraq if they are to suffer militia harassment and dethronement every time they run a committee. The Shias group behind the act simply resents the fact that the Sunnis still run the Iraqi Football Association. This is petty, will push the Sunnis away and may even lead to new violence. Hopefully, international pressure will stymie these actions:
There is more than one way of looking at this. FIFA, the world football body, took a dim view of armed interference in the affairs of one of its members, and banned Iraq from all international competitions until the takeover was reversed.
No success thus far. At least guns were not fired this time.
Source: The Economist.
