The Rebellious Game: Football in the Middle East and North Africa

Publication

The upcoming FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar sparked heated debates on football and politics. While the main line of critique points at flagrant corruption, climate disadvantages and devastating labor conditions, a supposed lack of football culture is often argued to spoil the magic of the world cup.

The Rebellious Game: Football and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa

Qatar is the first Arab country to host the FIFA World Cup. With this as a starting point, AGYA members Dr. Jan Busse and AGYA alumnus Dr. Anis Ben Amor initiated a publication project to showcase the rich history and promising trajectories of football in the Arab region. By bringing together various experts and scholars from Arab countries and Germany, the publication offers a wide range of contemporary debates from both, Arab and German public spheres. The contributions on football in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Iran, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, UAE and Yemen investigate diverse examples of the interplay between football as a sport, a cultural phenomenon, and a political battleground.

In the stadium, the establishment can be challenged and the taboos of the nation deconstructed.

This crucial function of football for societal negotiation processes is pointed out by the Algerian sports journalist, Maher Mezahi. In his contribution on Algerian football fans and protest songs, he highlights the role that football and its fan culture played for the anticolonial struggle after World War II, freedom of speech in the 1970s and ‘80s as well as the Hirak protests in 2019 leading to the resignation of long-term president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika. The contributions shed light on football in war-ridden Iraq, Yemen and Syria, on women’s rights in the context of football in Iran and the Gulf monarchies, and on the role of Egyptian Ultras in protest movements.

The popular mantra that sports shouldn’t mix with politics, has often proven to be an illusion.

Dr. Jan Busse and Dr. René Wildangel in the introduction of “Das rebellische Spiel: Die Macht des Fußballs im Nahen Osten und die Katar-WM

In the book’s introduction, Jan Busse and co-editor Dr. René Wildangel, Associate Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), state that it has been proven time and again that sport in general and football in particular cannot be viewed as separate from politics. Taking well-founded criticism against the FIFA World Cup in Qatar into consideration, the editors also voice their concern with regard to press coverage reproducing clichés and orientalized interpretations of the region.

We hope that this book succeeds in providing a more nuanced understanding not only of the situation in Qatar and the Gulf, but of the history and politics of football in the entire Middle East and North Africa: before, during, and after the World Cup in Qatar.

Dr. Jan Busse and Dr. René Wildangel  in the introduction of “Das rebellische Spiel: Die Macht des Fußballs im Nahen Osten und die Katar-WM