From the NYT.
Soccer’s world governing body suspended Iraq’s national soccer association on Monday, leaving the players on Iraq’s national team who had united a divided country fearing that they will not be able to participate in the 2010 World Cup.The diverse national squad of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, which overcame daunting social and athletic odds to win the 2007 Asian Cup, came off the field after an exhibition match in Thailand to find itself caught up in political wrangling at home.
What’s the reason?
The suspension by soccer’s governing body had its roots in a decision last week by the Iraqi government to disband the Iraqi Olympic Committee. The cabinet determined that the committee was operating illegally, because it lacked a quorum and had failed to hold new elections, a government spokesman said.Government officials also accused some Olympic committee members of corruption and of reneging on a promise to hold new elections. The committee has been replaced by a temporary organization appointed by the Minister for Youth and Sports. Iraqi Olympic athletes were not the only ones affected by the decision.
The international governing body for soccer, which is known internationally as football, announced Monday that its executive committee had suspended the Iraqi Football Association because the Iraqi Olympic Committee and all other national sporting federations had been disbanded.
So an organization devoted to unifying the country of Iraq was suspended because the Iraqi government took steps to clean up corruption. Astounding.
It wouldn’t be the first time that the FIFA has acted politically.
Israel is used to being singled out for unjust criticism and subjected to startling double standards by the United Nations, the European Union, much of the Western media and numerous academic bodies. But now FIFA — the supposedly nonpolitical organization that governs the world’s most popular sport, soccer — is getting in on the act as well.FIFA has condemned Israel for an air strike on an empty soccer field in the Gaza Strip that was used for training exercises by Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. This strike did not cause any injuries. But at the same time FIFA has refused to condemn a Palestinian rocket attack on an Israeli soccer field last week which did cause injuries.
Just try and remember what Iraqi sports used to be like. (graphic descriptions of torture follow.)
In 1997 FIFA, the governing body of world soccer, sent two investigators to Baghdad to question members of the Iraqi national team who’d allegedly had their feet caned by Uday’s henchmen after losing a World Cup qualifying match to Kazakhstan. The investigators spoke only to people whom Uday had selected. The result: a report exonerating Uday.”Did the torture of those players happen?” asks Sharar Haydar, a longtime Iraqi soccer star who participated in 40 international matches for the national team and was a teammate of many of the victims. “Absolutely. But when you interview athletes who are under Uday’s control, what else do you expect them to say?
“I know what they went through,” adds Haydar, who escaped from Iraq in 1998 and now lives in London. “I was tortured four times after matches. One time, after a friendly [match] against Jordan in Amman that we lost 2-0, Uday had me and three teammates taken to the prison. When we arrived, they took off our shirts, tied our feet together and pulled our knees over a bar as we lay on our backs. Then they dragged us over pavement and concrete, pulling the skin off our backs. Then they pulled us through a sandpit to get sand in our backs. Finally, they made us climb a ladder and jump into a vat of raw sewage. They wanted to get our wounds infected. The next day, and for every day we were there, they beat our feet. My punishment, because I was a star player, was 20 [lashings] per day. I asked the guard how he could ever forgive himself. He laughed and told me if he didn’t do this, Uday would do it to him. Uday made us athletes an example. He believed that if people saw he was not afraid to beat a hero, that they would live in greater fear.”
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
