Archives » Thursday, May 29, 2008
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Larry Kaplow
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May 29, 2008 03:39 PM
Iraqis breathed a collective sigh of relief Thursday as they learned
their beloved national soccer team would be allowed to keep playing.
FIFA, world soccer's governing body, rescinded a decision to suspend the Iraqi squad from qualifying matches
for next year's World Cup tournament. The national team is set to play
Australia in Brisbane on Sunday, when you can expect all televisions to
be tuned in any place in Baghdad that's getting its share of the seven
hours of daily city electricity.
Iraqi soccer is often called
the only big national success story since the U.S. invasion and fall of
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003. Despite the country's chaotic
mayhem, dysfunctional government and decrepit utilities, Iraq came in fourth at the 2004 Olympics and won the Asian championship last year. The wins repeatedly sent Iraqis into the streets with dances and celebratory gunfire that sometimes alarmed U.S. troops. The team–a mix mainly of Arab Shiites and ethnic Kurds with one Sunni Arab star (see The Official Younis Mahmoud Website)–unites
Iraqis in its success and diverts attention from bloodier matters. But
it has also gone through its own episodes of raw bloodshed, division
and politics.
Hussein's son Uday ran the country's sports
establishment for years before the war. He infamously had players
jailed and beaten when they failed to bring home wins. He also stifled
their requests to play abroad where they could make real money.
After
the war, retired soccer stars Ahmed Radhi and Hussein Saeed engaged in
a public feud over control for the newly liberated soccer domain. I
interviewed Radhi in 2003. He was young and handsome but with an
athlete's naiveté and clearly doomed against Saeed, an older and
educated former player who had already reached high positions in the
soccer union under Uday. Baghdad soccer fans would buzz with rumors
about Radhi having Saeed's house raked with machine gun fire (others
said it was a hand grenade) but Saeed, who I saw at a team practice in
2004 as he was flanked by Kalashnikov-wielding bodyguards, was secure
in his hold on soccer power and had good connections in the game
internationally.
Even amid their early post-war success, players
would complain that the soccer administration wasted or stole money
that they should have gone for things like good soccer shoes (players
bought their own) and health insurance. Granted, sports organizations
worldwide have a pretty long record for corruption and mismanagement.
It
was a decision by the Iraqi government that apparently touched off the
latest off-field drama. The cabinet of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki disbanded the Iraqi Olympic Committee, claiming its
leadership was corrupt and failing to hold required elections. The
soccer federation, still run by Saeed, is under the committee's
jurisdiction and was apparently also dissolved. FIFA, which held to a
hands-off stance throughout much of Uday Hussein's sadistic rule of
Iraqi soccer, pronounced this decision as illegitimate political
interference. On Monday, it announced it would suspend the team's World
Cup participation unless the Iraqi government reversed its action.
Widespread
distress and news coverage ensued with frequent updates on the
negotiations. The team arrived in Australia (they train outside Iraq
for safety) on Tuesday. Coach Adnan Hamad, who steered the team through
the 2004 Olympics, fretted that the controversy would prove a defeating
distraction.
But Thursday the FIFA ban was reversed after the
Iraqi government stipulated that it was not targeting the country's
soccer federation in its move against the umbrella Olympic Committee.
One of the first hints that a resolution was on the way came the night
before in a report quoting none other than Ahmed Radhi,
who for now appears to be back on workable terms with Saeed. Saeed
assured him that the game would go and Australian officials were
pushing to play the Sunday match so they would not lose the television
revenues. Whatever the reason, now it's up to the players to overcome
the chaos and win. They've done it before.
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