Thou Shalt Not Play Soccer?

Soccer has often been called a religion. Both soccer and religion boast an incredibly high number of passionate devotees. But some extremists in the religious community see the game as a threat to their religion and their values. Religious proclamations intended to prohibit soccer have been surprisingly common in recent times. Yet despite these edicts, soccer remains the only thing capable of competing with religion for adherents.

A recent Adidas advertisement makes the link between soccer and religion

A USA Today headline on Iraqis watching the 2006 World Cup screamed out “When World Cup’s on, the only religion is soccer.” 1970 Brazilian national team captain Carlos Alberto Torres has said that “football in Brazil is like a religion.” Even Italy, home of the Catholic church, has seen its obsession with calcio compared to matters of faith, with the AP describing it as “a country where soccer is a religion for many.”

Some have wondered whether Europe’s rise in soccer attendance and the drop in church-going are related. In a 2002 opinion piece in Rutgers University’s student newspaper, the Daily Targum, Thomas Mitchell asked whether soccer had become “Europe’s substitute religion.”

In pure numbers of adherents to their faith, soccer may actually be more popular than religion. Writing during the 2006 World Cup, Chicago Tribune writer Tom Hundley quantified the comparison:

Christianity, with more than 2 billion believers, ranks second among the major religions of the world. Soccer is first.

Devotees of soccer don’t necessarily see it as competing with religion for their faith. But some religious authorities do.

Some Islamists see the game as a direct threat to their values and have gone to great lengths to restrict it. In 2005, Saudi Arabian newspaper Al Watan published an anti-soccer fatwa. The fatwa went to great lengths to condemn the world’s most popular sport (including great popularity within the Kingdom of Saud itself). The fatwa is below followed by a few choice morsels of its condemnation.

You should spit in the face of whoever puts the ball between the posts.

Play in your regular clothes or your pyjamas or something like that, but not coloured shorts and numbered T-shirts, because shorts and T-shirts are not Muslim clothing.

Do not play in two halves. Rather, play in one half or three halves in order to completely differentiate yourselves from the heretics, the corrupted and the disobedient.

Do not call “foul” and stop the game if someone falls and sprains a hand or foot or the ball touches his hand, and do not give a yellow or red card to whoever was responsible for the injury or tackle. Instead, it should be adjudicated according to Sharia rulings concerning broken bones and injuries.

Do not follow the heretics, the Jews, the Christians and especially evil America regarding the number of players. Do not play with 11 people. Add to this number or decrease it.

Though the fatwa had little impact overall (other religious authorities condemned it roundly), it did seem to play a part in influencing some Saudis to travel to Iraq to wage jihad. These players were influenced most by the part of the fatwa which claimed that soccer should only be used as training for jihad:

If you have fulfilled these conditions and intend to play soccer, play to strengthen the body in order better to struggle in the way of God on high and to prepare the body for when it is called to jihad.

According to a translation from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI),

On August 22, 2005, Al-Watan reported that the soccer players involved in this affair were from the Al-Taif region, and that some of them belonged to the region’s well-known Al-Rashid team.” In another article, Al-Rashid captain Ja’far ‘Attas said that three of his players had left the team. A few days later, team members confirmed that the three had become devout and, under the influence of various fatwas, had begun to believe that soccer was forbidden by religious law.

In the summer of 2006, the World Cup coincided with the rise to power of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in Somalia. The Islamist group took control of the lawless country and immediately imposed its views on the population. Like the Taliban had done during its rule, the ICU barred its people from watching soccer. According to Newsweek, “open-air video parlors showing World Cup matches were shut down,” making Somalis among the few people around the world not watching the tournament that summer.

Hassan Dahir Aweys, one of the leaders of the soccer-banning Islamic Courts Union

Not wanting to be outdone by Sunni extremists, Iraq’s radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr issued his own anti-soccer fatwa. Citing the views of his father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sar, and Islamic law (sharia), the young cleric said:

Not only my father but Sharia also prohibits such activities which keep the followers too occupied for worshiping, keep people from remembering [to worship]. Habeebi, the West created things that keep us from completing ourselves (perfection). What did they make us do? Run after a ball, habeebi What does that mean? A man, this large and this tall, Muslim- running after a ball? Habeebi, this ‘goal’ as it is called; if you want to run, run for a noble goal. Follow the noble goals which complete you and not the ones that demean you.

Before returning to Iraq after the US invasion in 2003, Sadr lived in Iran, a country known for barring women from its stadiums. CNN detailed the Iranian policy:

One religious leader, Fazel Lankarani, went further and issued a fatwa against the presence of women in stadiums. Aliabadi, who announced that women would be permitted to attend live games from the start of next season, seemed to backtrack when he told reporters: “The ban on single women still exists and we won’t allow single women to attend any games. Only women who come with their families will be allowed in.” On March 1, Iran’s security forcibly stopped 50 female football fans from attempting to enter Tehran’s Azadi or “freedom” stadium to watch a match between Iran and Costa Rica.

But, as Franklin Foer documents in his book How Soccer Explains the World, passionate fans in Iran have fought against the restrictive rules. Foer tells how the Azadi stadium had, upon Iran’s qualification for the 1998 World Cup, seen thousands of women allowed in to celebrate the achievement (221). The Iranian regime, Foer writes, has a “Roman nose for self-preservation” (219) and going against their own fatwa was not a radical shift in policy, but a temporary move aimed at avoiding confrontation with jubilant fans.

Iranian fans in a special “female-only” section attend a game in 2005

Lest one think that Islam is the only religion to harbor animosity toward soccer, Christianity has its own extremists who critique the sport on religious grounds. Echoing the radical Islamists’ view that sport takes people’s focus away from “higher goals,” the Rev. Metropolitan of Nafpaktos and St. Vlassios Hierotheos of the Greek Hierotheos Vlachos of the Greek Orthodox Church issued this proclamation in 2002:

For many people, soccer is a religion, a worship. Several expressions used are taken from religion. Spectators sit in the stands and their “gods”, the soccer players, contest as another twelve/eleven gods in the field for Victory. Since soccer is considered by many as a new worship, there is certainly their own god, the god of soccer. They pray to this non-existing god.

As anyone who has seen the movie The Cup knows, not all Buddhists love the beautiful game. In the film, based on a true story, boys at a Tibetian Buddhist monestary in the Himalayas work to convince their teachers to allow them to watch the 2002 World Cup final. The outcome of the movie (I don’t want to spoil it but if you can’t figure out what happens at the end of this “feel good” flick something’s wrong with you) gives hope that the religious around the world might see the error in their ways.

From the Korean-language version poster of The Cup

Religious authorities need not see soccer as a threat to their faiths. The young monks who watched Ronaldo toe poke his way to victory have not lost their faith. Soccer is a powerful force loved billions around the world, but it is not powerful enough to challenge true religions.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 8th, 2007 at 9:45 pm and is filed under Asia, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.