By James M. Dorsey Efforts to leverage Qatar’s 2022 World Cup hosting rights to create the soft power the Gulf state needs to punch above its weight and ensure a sympathetic hearing in the international community in times of emergency operate on the Leninist principle of two steps forward, one step backwards. Take events this … [Read more…]
By James M. Dorsey For much of the last six years since winning the hosting rights of the 2022 World Cup, Qatar appeared to be taking a slow and torturous path towards some degree of reform. Yet, in an increasingly conservative world in which human rights are put on the backburner, fears among rights and … [Read more…]
By James M. Dorsey The Palestine Football Association (PFA), in a first testing of Palestine’s ability to fight its battle with Israel in international courts, plans to go to the world’s top court for sports in a bid to force its Israeli counterpart to view Israeli settlements on the West Bank as occupied territory rather … [Read more…]
By James M. Dorsey Faced with a drop in popularity, intermittent protests against rising prices, and calls for a mass anti-government demonstration, Egyptian general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, is seeking to appease the country’s youth, soccer fans and activists with promises of change. Mr. Al-Sisi’s efforts that include a one-time lifting of a ban on spectators … [Read more…]
By James M. Dorsey Pressured by human rights and trade union activists leveraging Qatar’s exposure as a World Cup host and influenced by subtle changes sparked by popular Arab revolts in recent years, young Qataris are pushing the envelope, broaching publicly hitherto taboo subjects like homosexuality, women’s dress codes, and citizenship. The pushing of the … [Read more…]
By James M Dorsey Egyptian-general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s failed economic policies are prompting protests and widespread expressions of discontent. While the grumbling is unlikely to mushroom any time soon into a popular revolt similar to the one that toppled President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, it goes a long way to explain why Mr. Al-Sisi has … [Read more…]
by James M Dorsey The soccer soft power contrast between Qatar and Iceland speaks volumes. A comparison of the strategies of both countries demonstrates that it takes more than money to leverage soccer to create political, geopolitical and economic opportunity. Money and world soccer body FIFA’s desire to take one of the world’s foremost sporting … [Read more…]
By James M. Dorsey Sunni scholars in Saudi Arabia and their Shiite counterparts in Iran may be at war over who is a Muslim, but there is one thing they agree on: soccer detracts from religious obligations. Iran, in the latest skirmish between soccer and Islam, is debating the propriety of playing a 2018 World … [Read more…]
By James M. Dorsey Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused world soccer body FIFA of allowing FIFA-sanctioned matches to be played on occupied land in the West Bank in violation of FIFA rules and has demanded that the group ensure that future games be staged within the borders of Israel prior to the 1967 Middle … [Read more…]
By James M. Dorsey This is an expanded version of remarks made at Interdisciplinary Net’s Politics, Money and Sport Places, and Mega Events workshop in Oxford, 13-15 October 2016 This is a story as much about Saudi Arabia or for that matter about Iran as it is about international sports associations and how they balance … [Read more…]