I think back to August 2007, when England hosted Germany in a “friendly” match that had “no meaning” as is often said. Christian Eichler of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a paper of record in Germany, wrote at the time about Wembley Stadium, where the game would be played:

In times of globalization, not only of markets but also of experiences and memories, there are few places that remain non-interchangeable. Places like Wembley. That place is uniquely English and at the same time: a German place.

Germany train at Wembley before their match against England (photo: AP/FAZ)

The article recounts important German wins at Wembley and the idea of playing in the land where the game was born. Articles in the English and German press show that many people, players and fans, cared very much about this match, despite the fact that it was only a “friendly.”

Of course the biggest event is the World Cup Final of 1966. In Germany, the term “Wembley Goal” signifies a goal that hits the top of the crossbar, lands in the goal, and then bounces out of it. The term refers to all such goals and the one that Germans believe lost them the 1966 World Cup Final against England, played at Wembley.

Why do events like this mean something? I will refer to something in philosophy called the “hermeneutic circle.”This circle consists of the background or “big story” that is understood by the interpreter encountering something new. Often, this background is implicit, also consisting of habits of interpretation. When we interpret something, we encounter a new “little story” and hold it up against the background, which also often changes as a result. The circle loops from the interpreter’s background to her new experience, which reshapes the background, and so on…National teams represent their countries and so their matches are inevitably held up against the big stories about those countries. For instance, when the US plays Cuba this year in the World Cup Qualifiers, the political relationship between these two countries will be thematized as the match is anticipated and discussed.

Germany’s World Cup win in 1954 represented a new state of affairs, in which Germany could again participate in the world scene in a normal way. Had they lost, another symbol might have been found but the “miracle at Bern” signaled that there is a way to be German and still participate in global affairs. Virtues are often cited in describing the team that won, including persistence, tactical intelligence, cooperation, and fitness. These enter the background in future attempts to deal with problems, many outside of soccer.

On the other side of this example: the Dutch have made every match with Germany about WWII. Representing the occupied Netherlands has proven to be a way to expunge the collaborationist parts of their history. Frank Rijkaard spitting on Rudi Völler wasn’t about Völler at all – great Dutch writers cite the occupation when they recall these matches (see Simon Kuper’s book Ajax, the Dutch, the War for more on this). There is a limit to how “normal” the interaction between Germany and the rest of the world can ever be.

(A side note: England’s football background is rather sad, really. The dominant themes are “we can’t get a break” and “those over-paid fat gits.” I can’t figure out if this is really part of England’s background in the larger scheme or not. There seems to be a sense that a country that ought to be the best isn’t. Having the fifth-best World Cup record and recently reaching the quarter-finals makes them the envy of most of he world but fans treat this as the result of forty years of bad luck or bad training or bad leadership. The win in 1966 somehow isn’t enough to turn around this diagnosis. Would another World Cup win achieve this? Why didn’t the Rugby win do the same thing?)It is hard to know how the interaction between a background and sporting events will happen. Germany’s “Wembley Goal” did not change the background in Germany. Second place in 1966 counted as a confirmation of the virtues they cited in 1954 and in other wins. The 2006 World Cup was hailed as a national “Summer’s Dream” and reaching third place launched massive street parties. Support for the national team launched a widespread discussion about how the country should present itself. There have never been so many Federal Republic flags flown and some people worried about how it would affect Germany’s behavior and image. The question that arises is whether it is appropriate for Germans to be proud of being German. Sporting events do not dictate interpretive outcomes because those are the products of the decisions made by the interpreters, given the options they are offered.

German fans fly their flag at the 2006 World Cup (photo: Orange.co.uk)

What makes Wembley a German place? The stories that were developed there. As Eichler puts it, “Ten German games there, five of them unforgettable.”Do sports events change things? Yes, thousands of people are doing something when they follow a game. For one thing, they are interpreting the world they live in. This is why measures to punish racist chants and unsportsmanlike conduct are important and need to be backed up with serious consequences.

I used national teams as my example but club identification can be explained (at least in part) with the same circle of interpretation. Later, I hope to illustrate that the great clubs all have a story. Many descriptions of clubs found in this blog have offered rich examples of this.

Note: The first notes for this article were written during the England/Germany friendly match. Germany won 2-1 and the match was declared a “typically English” one by the Guardian’s Tom Lutz. No meaning, indeed.

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Like most talented players, Qumsieh began to show interest in soccer early on. From the age of three, he began to kick anything within range. And whenever soccer came on television, he was transfixed.

Like young soccer enthusiasts around the world, Qumsieh began playing in the streets with friends. But unlike most kids, Qumsieh’s games were often interrupted by Israeli soldiers. “They would shoot in the air and tell everyone to leave,” recalls Qumsieh. When he later joined the Palestinian team Thagafi Beit Sahour, the team bus would often be turned back at Israeli checkpoints on the way to games.

Qumsieh was a precocious player and made his debut for Thagafi at age 16. Shortly after, he was invited to a try-out for the Palestinian under-17 national team. He made the team and in a match against Kuwait scored a memorable goal. With his team down 2-0, Qumsieh picked the ball up in midfield. He picks up the story from there: “I saw the goalkeeper playing like a sweeper … so I figured a shot it was worth it.” And the shot he took was definitely worth it.

After the game, people wanted to talk to him about his incredible goal. Some questioned whether he was young enough to be eligible for the U-17 team. All around him, he heard murmurs and people saying, “There was no way a kid … can have a shot like this.” So many people questioned his eligibly, Qumsieh says, that the “[tournament organizers] had to take something from my knee to see how old I was.”Qumsieh was a rising star in Palestinian soccer, but he also wanted to continue his education. When an offer came for a full scholarship to play soccer at Goshen College in Indiana, he took the offer. In two years at Goshen, he became a star at the Mennonite school, leading them to the national tournament. Qumsieh’s developed unique style – he describes it as “freestyle, moves, thinking fast” –on the streets of Bethlehm, but it translated quite well to the cornfields of the American Midwest.

At Goshen, Qumsieh was a big fish in a small pond. He longed for more space to swim and so when Park University coach Efrem Shimlis expressed interest in the Palestinian forward, Qumsieh took the chance. He transferred to the Kansas City school, where he just finished his first year. Qumsieh says that his first year with his new team was successful, even though they lost in the first round of the national tournament.Qumsieh is disappointed that the college teams he’s played on haven’t performed better in national tournaments, but says he’s grateful just to have the chance to play soccer in peace. He’s aware that the situation is quite different for Palestinian players who remain in the occupied territories.The Palestinian national team, Qumsieh notes, has, in its ten years of existence, struggled to overcome barriers imposed on it by the Israeli occupation. Qumsieh notes that, playing with youth national teams in Palestine, players would often be stopped at border checkpoints. “We would be on the borders like any other people. We would sleep in the streets at the borders.” Team officials would often appeal to FIFA to intervene, with limited success.(A movie called Goal Dreams chronicles the Palestinian national team’s unsuccessful attempt to qualify for the 2006 World Cup. The Palestinian FA went so far as bringing in Chilean players of Palestinian descent because the Israelis would not allow native Palestinians players through checkpoints.)In addition to barriers imposed by Israel, Qumsieh notes, a lack of money hinders the Palestinian team’s progress. He reckons that, on merit, he would likely be called up for the national team, but the costs of getting him to games prevents it from happening.

The political situation that has led to the West Bank and Gaza Strip being governed by separate Palestinian factions has also been played out within the national team. Qumsieh notes that spots on the team are divided equally between the two territories. This often causes problems for the players, as they get little chance to train together before matches. “Sometimes we don’t have time to know each other because of the situation. We practice maybe once or twice together. We’re not even used to each other at all.”

Despite this obstacle, Qumsieh says that atmosphere in national team camps he’s been involved with have been overwhelmingly positive. On youth national teams, Qumsieh was the only Christian, and often got good-spirited ribbing from his Muslim teammates. “They would kid me: ‘why don’t you become Muslim? Come on, man’.” But, Qumsieh says, “They’re all my friends. We respect each other. We’re representing Palestine.”

Representing Palestine is a powerful inspiration for Qumsieh. He has two goals: to become a professional player and to represent and improve the senior Palestinian national team.

Qumsieh had a trial with Egyptian powerhouse Al-Ahly last year and may have trials with European teams next year. When I ask him if he would ever consider playing for an Israeli team, Qumsieh laughs at the suggestion. Despite the geographic proximity, Israeli teams don’t scout Palestinian players. If considered in purely geographic terms, Qumsieh’s career path (Palestine to the US to, hopefully, Europe) makes absolutely no sense. But then, little in the Middle East does.

Qumsieh’s desire to represent his country again is, not surprisingly, tied closely to the political situation. He notes that all Palestinians cheer for their team, one of the few representations of statehood for a stateless people. Seeing the Palestinian national team, says Qumsieh, helps to take people’s mind off of the difficult conditions under which they live. The team allows “people [to] forget about the conflict.”

Qumsieh expresses exasperation with the conflict. “We’re really getting sick of it,” he says. “It’s boring.” The word boring may not be used often to describe the Israeli – Palestinian conflict, but its repetitiveness is, in some ways, just that.

Peace with Israel would represent a major boost for the Palestinian people of course, but also for its national team. Qumsieh is hopeful that Palestinian statehood can boost the team. “To do something to be proud of, that’s what I really wish for in the future. I want to represent Palestine with a good team, not a bad team.”

Thanks to Lee Tesdell for offering the idea that led to this interview.

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One important aspect of the US military’s reconstruction work has been an attempt to win over Afghan and Iraqi “hearts and minds.” This work has seen the American military (along with private contractors and the State Department) to use soccer, a popular sport in both countries, to gain support from locals. In doing so, they have run into many obstacles, several of which are emblematic of the larger difficulties the US military has faced in attempting to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan.

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael Sandoval, from Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, juggles a soccer ball before giving it away to a boy in the Maghdad district of Kirkuk, Iraq, Sept. 30, 2006. (Photo: TheDonovan.com / U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Samuel Bendet)

Several months after the invasion of Iraq, ever-supportive Fox News printed a list of the US military’s reconstruction projects. Several of these projects used soccer. Soldiers helped to collect and distribute soccer balls, set up teams and leagues, and clear and fix up fields throughout the country.

In the years since, Sadr City, Ramadi, and other cities throughout the country have all received new soccer fields or had old ones spruced up. Speaking in 2005, President Bush cited the reopening of a soccer stadium in Najaf as evidence of progress, although the Washington Post wrote shortly after that his claims were overblown.

Discrepancies between President Bush’s views on progress in Iraq and the reality on the ground occur quite commonly. Indeed, many have argued that his administration’s inability to see problems as they developed led to the full-blown insurgency that came about after the invasion of Iraq.

But while skewed perceptions of reality are a problem, some have argued that the military’s “hearts and minds” projects, such as those using soccer to win local support, are themselves problematic. Critiques have come from NGOs such as Oxfam, who said in 2003 that “[m]ilitary involvement in relief provision blurs the boundaries between military strategy and the independent action of impartial humanitarians. Military involvement can compromise the effective delivery of aid and lead to unintended consequences, potentially threatening the security of civilian aid workers.”

Some with military backgrounds have also criticized this strategy, saying that soldiers are not trained to be relief workers. Despite these critiques, the US military continues to employ relief work as part of its arsenal.

Throughout their time in Iraq, the US military has been accused of poor book-keeping. It has been alleged that millions of dollars have been lost and that weapons intended for the Iraqi army and police have instead made their way into the hands of those fighting the Americans. Abuse of funds destined for soccer-related projects has occurred as well. The Washington Post reported that an Iraqi contractor hired to renovate a high school in the Iraqi city of Musayyib was charging them double the going rate for soccer balls.

Part of the reason the military believes that soccer has the potential to win hearts and minds is because the sport and its stadiums had been so misused by previous governments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein’s son Uday was known to torture Iraqi national team players who performed poorly. The Taliban banned soccer in the national stadium in Kabul and used it instead to stage public executions. By reopening soccer stadiums as places to play soccer and by encouraging people to play the sport free of fear or persecution, the US military hopes it will win local support.

A match organized in Afghanistan’s national stadium after it was reopened in the post-Taliban era

Much of the use of soccer in reconstruction has been projects carried out on the ground in countries the US has invaded. But the success of Iraq’s Olympic team and later its full national team has not escaped the notice, and attempted political repurposing, of President Bush. During his reelection campaign of 2004, Bush used images of the Iraqi team (which surprisingly reached the semifinals) in an ad that included a narrator saying, “At this Olympics there will be two more free nations — and two fewer terrorist regimes.” Some players responded angrily, including Salih Sadir who told Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl, “Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign. He can find another way to advertise himself.”

(Bush seems to have learned his lesson, and didn’t use the Iraqi national team’s victory in last summer’s Asian Cup as an opportunity to toot his own horn. Perhaps he didn’t need to: many media outlets, including the New York Times, wrote about how the accomplishment had brought Iraqis of all stripes together. More recently, Iraqi national team players made the news when three of them defected while in Australia.)

The US is not alone in using soccer to try to improve its image in Iraq and Afghanistan. Japan granted the rights to air its popular anime Captain Tsubasa (renamed Captain Majed) to be broadcast free of charge in Iraq. Before pulling out, Korean forces in Iraq organized soccer tournaments and invited Iraqi players to Korea. Even enemies of the US have tried to use soccer for their own purposes: Iran has sought to increase its influence in neighboring Afghanistan by rebuilding, among other things, soccer fields.

Captain Tsubasa, soon to be Captain Majed (photo: Coucoucircus.org)

But as the biggest player by far in both countries, the US has had the most opportunity to use (and misuse) soccer as a tool in attempting to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. Reconstruction has proven far harder than any of the original promoters of war envisioned. Their ideas about freedom and democracy, it turned out, could not simply be imposed on countries with cultures and histories far different from their own.

In August, the US military initiated a project they thought would win over people in the Afghan city of Khost. They flew over the city and dropped soccer balls from a helicopter as a gift to local children. But when the balls hit the ground, the locals were incensed. The balls contained a Saudi Arabian flag, on which the name of Allah is written, and this writing is considered holy by many Muslims. A protest ensued, bringing hundreds out onto the streets.

Khost residents protest the “blasphemous balls” (photo: BBC)

Local politician Mirwais Yasini said, “To have a verse of the Koran on something you kick with your foot would be an insult in any Muslim country around the world.”

A military spokesperson responded, in a manner that epitomized the bright-eyed naiveté with which the Americans have gone at reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan. She admitted that US forces had made “significant efforts to work with local leaders, mullahs and elders to respect their culture. Unfortunately, there was something on those footballs we didn’t immediately understand to be offensive and we regret that as we do not want to offend.”

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Son Al-Saadi Qaddafi, meanwhile, has signed for several Italian Serie A teams, played no more than one game for each, and been banned for drug use. Trying to understand the way that the family’s mind works, on politics or soccer, is difficult, is mind-boggling.

Father and son (photos: Getty Images/BBC and AP/BBC)

After coming to power in a military coup in 1969, Muamar Qaddafi rose to worldwide prominence as a supporter of terrorism. He is believed to have funded the Black September group responsible for the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Olympics and the bombers of Pan Am flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. In 1984, a British policewoman named Yvonne Fletcher was killed by shots fired from within the Libyan embassy during an anti-Libyan rally (during the subsequent investigation Libya invoked diplomatic immunity and the shooter was never identified).

It has been a surprise to many, then, to see Qaddafi morph in the past few years into a semi-respectable leader. He allowed suspects in the Lockerbie bombings to be extradited in 1999 and in 2003 agreed to pay up to $10 million each to families of the victims. That same year, he announced that Libya had had a covert nuclear weapons program, but that it would be scrapped.

Shortly after September 11, Qaddafi had said, “Irrespective of the conflict with America it is a human duty to show sympathy with the American people, and be with them at these horrifying and awesome events which are bound to awaken human conscience.” Most recently, Qaddafi sponsored a peace conference aimed at stopping the killing going on in the Darfur region of Sudan. Though it amounted to little, it was striking to many to see Qaddafi, the former sponsor of terrorism, working to alleviate conflict.

Muamar Qaddafi presiding over the recent Darfur peace conference in Libya (photo: Reuters/Fred Noy/U.N./Handout)

But lest one think that Qaddafi is a completely reformed man, it should be noted that he retains a dictatorial hold on Libya, despite his rhetoric about “direct, popular democracy.” He urges his supporters to “kill enemies” of his regime. And his country was in the news recently for accusing 17 Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor of intentionally infecting Libyan children with AIDS and sentencing them to death on flimsy evidence (they were freed at the last minute under intense international pressure).

Qaddafi himself remains an eccentric person. Paul Vallely described the Libyan leader’s quirks in the Independent in September of 2006:

Gaddafi has always been odd. He dresses in flamboyant robes and receives visiting heads of state in a Bedouin tent. His personal bodyguard [sic] are an Amazonian corps of women, all martial arts experts. He does things like ordering the population of Tripoli to paint their rooftops green so that the desert city appears lush to visitors flying in.

Qaddafi looking absolutely fabulous (photo: The Royals Forum)

If Muamar Qaddafi’s personality and rule of Libya seem a bit odd, just wait until you hear about the soccer career of his son, Al-Saadi.

He began his career playing for Al Ahly Tripoli. In 2000, it was reported that he had signed with Maltese team Birkirkara F.C. But Al-Saadi never made the trip to Malta to join the team. He later signed with (and even joined!) Italian team Perugia in 2003, though he only played one match before failing a drug test and being suspended (this one match was apparently enough to convince many of his talents: the Observer wrote last month that he is “widely described as Serie A’s worst ever player).

This history wasn’t enough to dissuade Udinese from signing the younger Qaddafi in 2005. A bench-warmer the entire year, Al-Saadi did play 10 minutes of an unimportant late season match before being released.

Qaddafi the younger was most recently given the opportunity to train with Sampdoria, though this seemed to have as much to do with team president Riccardo Garrone, head of oil company Erg, trying to get a slice of Libya’s vast oil reserves. A friendly was arranged between Sampdoria and the Libyan national team that Al-Saadi Qaddafi said would “also add to the political and economic relations between Italy and Libya.” This was surely music to Garrone’s ears.

Libya and Sampdoria before their friendly (photo: Libyan Football Federation)

The Sampdoria president is not the only Italian boss reaching out to the Qaddafis. The family owns a 7.5% stake in Juventus, a team owned by the Agnelli family, who control Fiat, and have long ties to Muamar Qaddafi and his family. The connection between family and club seems to have as much to do with business and personal ties as it does with soccer.

The Qaddafi family normally divides up areas in which they demonstrate their strangeness: Muamar specializing in politics, Al-Saadi in soccer. But Muamar (the “Brother Leader” as he prefers to be called) recently ventured into the world of sport. Writing on his official website, he denounced FIFA and the World Cup.

It is monopolized, badly exploited and willfully adapted to serve the interests of those who monopolize and exploit it. Ostensibly, the World Cup was established to achieve a social and psychological benefit for people. Nevertheless, what The World Cup has achieved is the exact opposite.

He continued, claiming that soccer is bad for people’s health.

Those who have football (soccer) mania, and those addicted to the game are most at risk of psychological and nervous disorders. Those disorders in turn are the leading causes of heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, hyper-tension and premature ageing.

Oh, and soccer creates racism, claimed Qaddafi. And human trafficking. And war.

Mostly, though, Qaddafi seemed interested in having World Cup matches staged in countries around the world (without this change, he says, “the World Cup is not international nor does it belong to all people”). Brother Leader finished with a flourish.

This is the solution. Otherwise, the World Cup should be abolished in view of the mortal danger it poses to the world physically and morally. It leads to problems, difficulties, disorders, hatred and enmity. It causes the spread of degenerate behavior and collective recklessness and irresponsibility. Socio-psychological studies have proven that the manic, fanatical addicts of the World Cup are below normal in intellectual capacity and psychological development.

In no way is Muamar Qaddafi mentally unstable (photo: Algathafi.org)

When Greece and Turkey faced off in a recent Euro 2008 qualifier, politics hung heavy in the air. But it had nothing to do with Turkish-Greek relations. Instead, the game, played in Istanbul, offered the local fans a venue to air their more recent grievances against the Kurdish PKK group, which recently killed 12 Turkish soldiers.

Turkish fans wave flags before kick-off (photo: Asher Kohn)

I was tipped off to this by Asher Kohn, a student at the University of Maryland, who is spending the semester abroad in Turkey. Asher went to the game (which Greece won 1-0, their first ever victory over Turkey) and sent me this account of what he saw.

Last week I somewhat miraculously scored tickets to the Greece-Turkey game for Euro 08 qualification. It was funny, I really had no clue what to expect. I figured that there would be a lot of good-natured screaming and mocking of Greeks; maybe a “1453!” chant (when the Turks took Constantinople) or something like that. Instead it was an ultra-nationalist atmosphere just this side of a Fascist Rally.

Things are getting fairly nasty in Eastern Turkey/North Iraq right now. A lot of Kurdish separatists are hiding out in Iraq and go across the border, kill a few soldiers, then return to Iraq. Any day now, the Turkish Army is going to go into Iraq. The US is trying to convince them not to, but there’s pretty much no way that’ll happen after 12 soldiers were killed yesterday. I think there was a big battle and 8 or so were killed the day before the Turkey-Greece game.

The stadium holds about 50,000 people, and this game was on TV or radio just about everywhere in Turkey. Everybody has a Turkish flag, I think. And the chants were not friendly, not light-hearted … and not directed at the Greeks. The standard chants were “Fuck the PKK!” and “Martyrs never die, our nation won’t be divided!” The game was actually a protest more than it was a game. No one cared about Greece, they just wanted the Turkish Government to do something about the PKK.

Greece won, 1-0, by the way. It was a fairly boring game. The most interesting part, by far, was the fact that the game was a political weapon, something that really doesn’t have a parallel in the states. I’ve never seen such a huge number of people so devoted to a single political cause. It was a pretty enlightening experience, the sort of thing that really turns on a light bulb in my head: “Oh, so that’s why there are so many problems with the Kurds here.”

Turkish soccer fans display a banner reads that: “Not only 15 we are 70 million Mehmetcik’”referring the 15 Turkish soldiers who were killed by separatist Kurdish rebels (photo: AP/Murad Sezer)

Banners hung by Turkish fans to express their feelings (photo: Asher Kohn)

The political demonstrations at this game seem to have inspired other Turkish soccer fans to let their feelings be known in the stadium. There were similar scenes when Liverpool took on Besiktas last week in the Champions League, as Andy Hunter wrote in the Guardian’s match report.

The setting for Liverpool’s latest ordeal was more akin to a political rally than a Champions League tie between two teams desperate for their first group win. Outside the arena were banners calling for an invasion of northern Iraq and war against the Kurdish rebel organisation, the PKK, and inside a lone bugler sounded a tribute to the Turkish soldiers killed by the group in recent weeks. “This is an important victory for the nation, given the men we have lost in the east,” said the Besiktas coach, Ertugrul Saglam. Amid a sea of Turkish flags one supporter broke forth to plant the national banner in the centre of the pitch, only for the pole to break as it struck the grass. The symbolic failure had no lingering effect on the team or an exuberant crowd, however.

Besiktas fans display a giant Turkish flag with the words “Martyrs never die. This land cannot be divided” written on it (photo: Reuters/Fatih Saribas)

Asher Kohn tells me that Besiktas are the traditional working-class team of Turkey and their stadium, which is across from a park that is the site of nationalist rallies, is covered with political slogans at the moment. Turkish Daily News reporter Çetin Cem Yilmaz also attended the match about Liverpool and wrote about his feelings while inside the stadium.

We entered the stadium and I was simply stunned by the decibel of the fan shouts, though I am familiar with Besiktas. But I was even more impressed by the quiet during the one-minute silence in honor of the 12 slain soldiers’ who were killed last Sunday by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants. The constant playing of nationalist songs in the stadium via the speakers proved that Besiktas fans, too, saw the game as a chance to prove that terrorist attacks cannot bring Turks down.

With the nation’s consciousness overwhelmed by the question of the PKK, it is perhaps not surprising that Turkish soccer fans have expressed their feelings in the country’s stadiums. Politics and soccer often mix in the minds of fans throughout the world (see the 1998 World Cup game between the US and Iran or every game since the Falklands War involving England and Argentina). But it is rare that soccer fans express their feelings as viscerally as have Turkish fans in the past couple of weeks. To paraphrase and misquote Rodney Dangerfield, it’s as if they went to a political rally and a soccer game broke out.

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Croatian-Australian Mark Viduka (photo: Getty Images/ABC)

The connections between Croatia and Australia began in the 1850s during the Australian Gold Rush. The number of Croatians moving to Australia was small (not getting over 1,000 until after the turn of the century). The first Croatian soccer team in Australia was founded in 1945 by Marin Alagich.

A wave of Croatians who had been displaced by World War II came to Australia shortly after the fighting concluded. These new immigrants filled the ranks of Croatian teams, which multiplied throughout Australia’s major cities. Roy Hay, in his article ‘Those Bloody Croatians’: Croatian Soccer Teams, Ethnicity and Violence in Australia, 1950-99 has written of one ambitious club official. “Joe Radojevic, secretary of Geelong’s Croatia club in the 1950s, visited incoming ships in the company of a Slovenian priest to recruit Croatian soccer players, bringing around 350 to the club in his own estimation” (79).

The clubs grew and became integral parts of the Croatian communities in Australia (Hay claims they were initially more important than the local churches). The clubs took on great importance to community, standing for the Croatian state that many hoped would eventually become independent of Yugoslavia. Australian academic Philip Mosley has written:

More than any other ethnic group in Australia the Croats used soccer for political means. It was not just that they expressed their own nationalism. Plenty of other groups did so as well. What differentiated them was how pointed was their expression of nationalism. Convinced of perceived injustice, the Croats gave voice to their antagonism to Tito’s Yugoslavia … (35).

There was occasionally violence associated with Croatian soccer clubs and their fans. In 1972, a Croatian team was expelled from the Victorian Soccer Federation after numerous incidents of violence surrounding their matches. Matches against other ethnic Serbian teams were particularly charged. During the wars in the Balkans during the 1990s, matches between such teams had to be played behind closed doors.

Wray Vamplew has claimed that the violence was to “some extent … a product of the media, particularly the Australian press, which has focussed on crowd disturbances seeing them as newsworthy in the light of the European experience” (1). Accurate or not, the perception of violence among ethnic teams was such that teams with ethnic names were at one point not permitted to play in Australia’s professional league.

But more lasting than any violence is large number of players from the Croatian community who have reached the highest levels of Australian and international soccer. Australia’s former professional National Soccer League had two teams – Melbourne Knights and Sydney United – with strong connections to the Croatian community (neither features in the new A-League but do play in regional leagues as well as the annual Australian Croatia Soccer Tournament). The following players on Australia’s 2006 World Cup team had Croatian ancestry:

• Jason Culina (his father, Branko, is a coach and the entire family is featured on the Austrlian Migration Heritage Centre’s website)
• Tony Popovic
• Josip Skoko
• Mark Viduka
• Ante Covic
• Zeljko Kalac
• Mark Bresciano (his last name comes his Italian father, but his mother is Croatian)

The Australian national team (photo: Xinhua)

At the 2006 World Cup, Australia and Croatia played each other, drawing 2-2 in a first round match. The game is best remembered for Graham Poll giving Josip Simunic 3 yellow cards before sending him off. The English referee’s mistake has since become infamous, but perhaps Poll was confused about which country Simunic was really representing. After all, the defender was one of three Croatian players (along with Joe Didulica and Anthony Seric) born in Australia.

Japan celebrate their victory in a nearly empty Chinese stadium

But the real protests of the 2004 Asian Cup were far from symbolic.

Throughout the tournament, Chinese fans repeatedly booed the Japanese team, burned Japanese flags, and even at one point surrounded the Japanese team’s bus, which sped off in panic, momentarily leaving behind two terrified players.

After the final, the protests became all-out riots. Reuters reported that, “Trouble flared outside the stadium after the match, however, with police in riot gear battling to restore order among furious Chinese fans amid wailing sirens and flashing police lights. A bus carrying delegates was attacked, with bottles and garbage thrown, and police charged the crowd with batons and riot shields to clear a path.”

The BBC offered further details: “Fans burned Japanese flags, shouted obscenities and sang patriotic songs outside the stadium as more than 5,000 police lined the streets.”

Chinese fans make their anti-Japanese feelings known

Where had the anger come from that led to such passionate and violent protests? Sport is one thing, but vitriol like that seen at the 2004 Asian Cup did not come from performance on the pitch. The anger that the Chinese protesters exhibited stems largely from Japan’s occupation of China from the 1930s through World War II.

As Reuters reported, “Chinese harbour bitter resentment over Japan’s military invasion and brutal occupation of parts of the country from 1931 to 1945, when tens of millions died.” The Rape of Nanking, an infamous Japanese bombing and murder campaign that killed 300,000 Chinese, occurred during this time. In the past few years, mustard gas dump sites dating back to war have been discovered in northern China, not coincidentally the location of Japan’s opening round games.

Perhaps most infuriating to the Chinese, many in Japan refuse to acknowledge the wrongs their country committed in China. As Robert Marquand wrote in the Christian Science Monitor wrote at the time, “Unlike postwar Germany, postwar Japan was never able to face its brutal wartime record in Asia in any serious, self-reflective manner.” Some Japanese history textbooks used today don’t mention Japanese occupation of China. And then-Prime Minster Junichiro Koizumi’s visits (as well as those by others before and since) to the Yasukuni Shrine, which houses the remains of World War II Japanese war criminals, have been a constant source of anger for many Chinese.

Junichiro Koizumi visits the Yasukuni Shrine in 2001

But the protests are not just about atrocities committed over half a century ago. As China has risen to become a global economic and political power, it has challenged Japan’s regional supremacy. More than one commentator suggested that the anti-Japanese protests of 2004 were permitted or even encouraged by the Chinese government in order to unite its people against a common enemy. Again, Robert Marquand: “[Anti-Japanese sentiment] gets raised when there are tensions in the region, and also when Beijing is seeking to unify its domestic patriotic base.”

A Christian Science Monitor editorial opined that, “After years of trying to befriend China with huge loans, Japan has begun to realize that Beijing finds it useful to unify the Chinese behind the Communist Party by occasionally letting loose nationalist and historical resentments against Japan.” This nationalist and historical resentment was never more obvious than at the 2004 Asian Cup.

So, what is the solution to this problem? To do so it is necessary to define the problem, or, as I see it, the problems.The two main problems that the 2004 Asian Cup protests exposed were: 1) lingering animosity of many Chinese toward Japan over its conduct in the World War II, and 2) the Chinese government’s willingness to exploit anti-Japanese animosity for its own benefit (i.e. uniting its people).

First and foremost, the Japanese must acknowledge their role in some of the most appalling events of the 20th century. The only thing more heinous than having brutally occupied and ruled China is the fact that many Japanese refuse to admit to having done so. A growing tide of nationalism in Japan makes this prospect unlikely, as recently elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is firmly in the nationalist camp, even supporting “revisionist history textbooks that teach students to take pride in their nation rather than focus on accounts of Japanese wartime aggression and atrocities.”

Bodies piled up after being killed during the Rape of Nanking

But China is not entirely without fault. Its control of nearly all media in the country meant that anti-Japanese issues raised in newspapers (such as the discovery of mustard gas) must be approved for publication by the government. That the 2004 Asian Cup protests were not shut down immediately suggests that the authoritarian Chinese government at least tacitly approved of them. The official China People’s Daily article headlined “Civility and reason: excitement likely for Chinese fans” sounded like the misleading propaganda it is when it said at the time, “There have been some overacting fans occasionally in major international games, who, however, are not what we want to copy.”

Ultimately, soccer tournaments should be about sports, not politics. Japan should apologize for past atrocities and China should responsibly discuss sensitive issues with its neighbor rather than encourage violent anti-Japanese protests. But both of these things should occur in discussions between politicians, far from the soccer field. Leaders in Japan and China would do well to listen to Chinese captain Li Weifeng, who said before the Asian Cup final, “Sport is the symbol of friendship so there are absolutely no political feelings or thoughts involved in our minds.”

Li Weifeng: Asian peacemaker?

The suicide bombing that killed 18 boys as they played soccer in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Ramadi last Monday was sad enough on its own. At the same time, it illustrates how badly the American military is struggling to contain the violence in Iraq as the country spirals downward towards all-out civil war.

Children play soccer on a Fallujah field after a suicide bombing

On hearing reports of the suicide bombing, the US military went into news-spinning mode. Spokesmen said that there were two incidents that day in Ramadi and that one had been a controlled explosion near a soccer field in which there had been injuries but no deaths.

Only later in the week, with some reporting from the Washington Post, did it become clear that the soccer field attack had indeed occurred. The Post quoted local sheikh Raad Sabah al-Mukeilef, who was likely the intended target of the attack. Mukeilef said of the suicide bomber, “He came in a pickup. Instead of coming in my street, he did it in a small park for children.”

The sheikh also claimed that no members of the US military had responded to the incident. Despite this account, US military spokesman Mark Fox continued to contradict reality. “We ran this down,” said Rear Admiral Fox. “There was no second blast and there were not 18 children killed. The soccer field that was touted in the erroneous report was across the street from the structure that was in the controlled detonation.”

It is sad enough that the US military has so little awareness of, let alone control over, the violence in Iraq. It is even sadder that 18 children had to die playing soccer to make this clear.

Days after the suicide bombing that killed these young boys Ramadi was again the site of violence toward soccer players. The Guardian reports that Mohhamed Hamid and Mohammed Mishaan, both members of the local Ramadi Football Club, were killed on March 2. According to the website Iraq Slogger, both players were killed in the middle of a team practice.

Masked gunmen in Ramadi, west of Iraq, killed football players Mohammed Hamid, 27, and Mohammed Mish’an, 23, from the Ramadi Football Team in front of spectators and teammates while they were in a training session Friday. Three vehicles carrying a dozen gunmen entered the stadium and dragged the two players toward the cars, while people watched in fear. When the two players resisted, they were both shot execution-style, according to eyewitnesses and Ramadi police spokesman Major Tariq Yousif. The two players were accused of being supporters of the Anbar Salvation Council, a tribal group led by Sheikh Abdul Sattar Al-Rishawi, which is opposed to Al-Qaeda militants in the Anbar Governorate.

No word yet on whether the US military plans to deny this latest violence on Iraq’s soccer fields.

Update

NPR ran a great story which is an antidote the theme of violence being perpetrated on the soccer field. The story talks about a mixed Sunni / Shiite league in Baghdad that attempts to bring players from all backgrounds together. Many of the players specifically talked about the league being non-sectarian as a reason why they played in it. Unfortunately, it’s probably only a matter of time before those in Iraq who don’t want to see such unity attack the players in this league.

Assyriska fans hold up a giant Assyrian flag in support of their team

Assyriska was founded in 1974 by Assyrian immigrants to Sweden. Most of the founding members worked at a local truck factory who formed the club to play soccer in their free time. From those modest beginnings, the club slowly rose through the ranks of Swedish soccer.

In 2003, they made it to the Swedish Cup final, losing to established power Elfsborg. One year later, the team of founded by Assyrian immigrant factory workers won promotion to the Swedish Premier Division. The reaction was pure jubilation. The club marketing director Robil Haidari said, “At that moment we just felt such enormous joy, I figured everybody in the world is Assyrian now, even God is Assyrian, or at least a supporter.”

Assyrian residents of the town of Södertälje, the Swedish town where Assyriska are from, were similarly overwhelmed. Local resident Abraham Staifo attempted to explain his emotions:

It encouraged the young ones to feel pride in being what they are, and brought tears to the eyes of the elderly. It was so much more than just football. The Assyrian people have few opportunities to express themselves. We felt our hearts would shoot out from our chests. That is why the elderly cried.

Reaching these dizzying heights brought recognition to the team, not least among the estimated 2 million Assyrians living around the world. Club president Zeiki Bisso told FIFA’s website, “For all of us who were oppressed in our home countries for many years … this felt superb, it was something every Assyrian wanted to take pride in.”

Indeed, at times it seemed like nearly every Assyrian did take pride in the club’s success. Its matches were broadcast in 83 countries and the diaspora spoke about the team in glowing terms. Assyriska team scarves began to appear far from Sweden, including by Nick Dinkha, a Toronto resident.

The pride fans around the world expressed in Assyriska has everything to do with the often sad history of the Assyrian people. The Assyrians are indigenous to current-day Iraq and have lived there for thousands of years. They were one of the first groups to convert to Christianity. Even as many around them in the Middle East later converted to Islam, Assyrians continued to practice their religion.

Assyrians’ historical relationship with their neighbors is fraught with flare-ups of violence. Assyrians have been the subject of campaigns of oppression that has risen to the level of mass murder on several occasions. In 2003, political analyst Jonathan Eric Lewis wrote in Middle East Quarterly that of the events of 1915 when up to two-thirds of the Assyrian community of southeastern Turkey and northern Iran was physically decimated in a matter of months. Lewis also documents a 1933 event in which nearly 3000 people were killed by Iraqi and Kurdish fighters, the anniversary of which is a national day of mourning for Assyrians around the world.

Ottoman soldiers stand over the bodies of murdered Assyrians

In Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, things were not much better. Speaking the Assyrian language and advocating Assyrian nationalism were both criminalized. Many left the country and this exodus has accelerated since the US overthrew Hussein in 2003. The violence in Iraq is often described as a battle between Sunnis and Shiites, but Iraqi Christians have been intimidated and murdered across the country. When prominent Iraqi Assyrian leader Isaac Esho Alhelani was murdered earlier this month, he joined the ranks of many Christians targeted for their beliefs or their perceived wealth. Assyrians account for only three to five percent of the Iraqi population, but have accounted for roughly 40 percent of that country’s refugees.

Those leaving Iraq today are going to countries with established Assyrian populations. The United States has around 83,000 Assyrians, Jordan 77,000, and Sweden is third among diaspora countries with 35,000 Assyrians. Despite the growing numbers of Assyrians living around the world, many wish for their own country.

It is into this statelessness that a small Swedish soccer club founded by Assyrian immigrants entered. entered. Many claim Assyriska’s popularity is due to it being seen as a pseudo-national team. Club president Zeki Bisso says that “Assyriska feels like a national team for the entire [Assyrian] group.”

Assyriska has since been relegated back to the second division in Sweden. Its importance, however, has not been diminished. For the Assyrian population around the world, Assyriska is not just a soccer team; it is the most visible expression of national pride for an oppressed people without a nation.

Assyriska players celebrate after a goal

Further Information

A movie about Assyriska called A Team Without a Nation was made in 2006. I have not seen it, but would love to hear about it if anyone has.

While soccer has often helped to heal rifts, soccer fields have also been the sites of political violence. Unfortunately, nearly every example of peace brought about in a stadium can be matched by an atrocity perpetrated on the pitch. Such atrocities have occurred throughout the world. Given soccer’s unrivaled global popularity, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the best and worst of human nature has been witnessed on its fields.

I began writing this post on political violence on the soccer field with a few examples in mind (Afghanistan, Chile, and Rwanda). With just a bit of research have come up with many, many more. I am sure there are examples I have not documented here; I had to stop looking in order to share what I have compiled.

I have broken the examples of political violence on soccer fields into the regions in which they occurred. I want to stress that these are all examples of political violence on the field. We all know about hooligans who bring violence to stadiums, but they are not what I am focusing on here.

Asia

Long before the Taliban gained worldwide notoriety as the hosts of terror network Al Qaeda, it was primarily known for its brutal human rights violations. Chief among these was the public execution of violators of its extreme interpretation of Islamic law. In 1999, a woman named Zarmeena was accused of murdering her husband with a hammer as he slept. Zarmeena was brought to the national stadium and publicly executed on the dirt field, which still had soccer markings. The AP reported at the time:

Zarmeena was taken from the back of a pickup truck that drove into the sports stadium. Two female police officers, both in deep blue burqas, held Zarmeena’s arms. Witnesses said the convicted woman walked slowly, each step followed by a pause. When she reached the center of the field she was ordered by one of the women to sit.

Behind her a young Taliban soldier, his head wrapped in the traditional turban, took aim with his Kalashnikov rifle. But suddenly Zarmeena stood up and tried to flee. A policewoman stopped her and forced her to sit, said witnesses.

The Taliban soldier moved closer and shot her three times.

Afterward from the crowd several people shouted “God is great.”

The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan has the full AP report, complete with photos and a video (warning: it’s very gruesome).

After overthrowing the Taliban 2001, the ISAF (Internationl Security Assistance Forces) realized how potent the image of the soccer stadium is. What better propaganda coup than replacing public executions with an actual soccer match? They organized a game in 2001 between an Afghan team and a group of their forces.

Soccer returns to Afghanistan’s National Stadium

The Taliban may have gotten the idea of using stadiums for public executions from the Chinese, who used the tactic for years. Although capital punishment in China is now carried out in private by lethal injection, for years the Communist government used very public ceremonies to execute its criminals.

The Ottawa Citizen reported in 1994 that “In Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, photographs from a September sentencing at a sports stadium were displayed prominently in the city centre for at least two months.” In 1998, 30 people were killed in the soccer stadium in the southern city of Shenzhen. 2001 saw public executions in stadiums, again in Sichuan province. A report by Amnesty International in that same year suggested that mass executions were occurring at the Beijing Workers’ Stadium, which will host games at the 2008 Olympics.

Condemned criminals are paraded before a crowd in a stadium in Chengdu in 2001

East Timor was the site of extreme political violence during the 1990s, as it fought for independence from Indonesia. A soccer stadium in Dili, capital of the former Portuguese colony, was the site of alleged torture by Australian troops sent there to stabilize the country. The Sydney Morning Herald reported in 2003 that members of an anti-independence militia group “were marched by their Australian Army captors from the Aitarak headquarters in Dili to an empty football stadium. There they were forced into the wasp-infested toilets and had their heads pushed down toilet bowls.”

Africa

Political violence and soccer have been prevalent throughout Africa’s history. In 1979, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported on refugees from Angola who claimed that “public mass executions took place frequently at a soccer stadium near the Angolan capital of Luanda.”

15 years later, Rwanda was the site of extreme political and ethnic violence. During the 1994 genocide, 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered. Many of these murders took place in soccer stadiums. A report titled “A Quantitative Analysis of Genocide in Kibuye Prefecture, Rwanda” lists 4,500 people killed at Kibuye Stadium and nearly 3,500 killed at Gatwaro Stadium. Thousands of others were murdered at stadiums across Rwanda.

Trials against leaders of the genocide led to many death penalty sentences. In 1998, the Globe and Mail reported that the first 33 people convicted of being involved in the genocide were themselves put to death in a public execution in a soccer stadium in the capital, Kigali.

Latin America

One of the most well known instances of political violence occurring in a soccer stadium occurred in Chile. Shortly after seizing power in a military coup, dictator Augusto Pinochet rounded up many thousands of his political enemies and took them to the National Stadium, where they remained for several months. Conditions in the stadium were awful, with torture common. Many murders were also carried out at the stadium. A Chilean commission studying the torture later offered even more details:

• [T]he room for medical treatment was sometimes used for [torture]. Firing squads were simulated and other cruel techniques were employed. As a rule the prisoners were subjected to constant and intense interrogation.
• The representatives and medical representatives of the IRCC (International Red Cross Committee) have found that many prisoners show signs they have undergone psychological and physical torture.
• This Commission also concluded that a number of executions took place inside the National Stadium.

Prisoners stand on the terraces of Chile’s National Stadium in 1973

Chile’s National Stadium, site of the 1962 World Cup final, would return to its sporting roots. The Chilean national team as well as club team Universidad de Chile play their matches there today. There is now a monument to remember the many people who were tortured and killed in the stadium which once served as a concentration camp.

Chile’s National Stadium today

Chile’s neighbor Argentina also had a ruthless military dictatorship in the 1970s that was keen to use soccer to maintain its power. Although no evidence exists that stadiums themselves were used as torture centers like in Chile, the violence in that country could not be hidden when it hosted the 1978 World Cup. The military junta’s policy of “disappearing” its political enemies was known around the world, leading Dutch superstar Johan Cruyff to boycott the tournament. Those players who made the trip to South America may have tried to shield their eyes from the brutal policies of the Argentine rulers, but they were closer than they may have realized to sites of torture in the country.

[N]ear the World Cup stadium there were hidden concentration camps — they were so close that the fans’ shouts of celebration when the Argentine national team scored a goal could drown out the screams of the tortured people.

Europe

The break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s lead to a period of brutal violence, as people in the Balkans fought to establish the borders and identities of their newly independent republics. Soccer played a part in sparking the conflict and soccer stadiums often were the sites of violence.

As Franklin Foer documents in his his book How Soccer Explains the World, “a match between Red Star and Dinamo “was the first time in fifty years that Yugoslvia had seen its ethnic groups openly battle one another.” A brawl exploded between fans of the Serbian team (Red Star) and Croatian team (Dinamo), which spilled onto the field itself. As Serbian police beat a Dinamo fan, Zvonomir Boban made himself into a hero of the Croatian people by directly a flying kick at the cop, as seen in this video.

Of the many countries which attained independence during the 1990s Balkan Wars, the one which experienced the most violence was Bosnia. Massacres there have since become well known, especially that which occurred at Srebrenica. Of the nearly 9,000 Bosnian men murdered in that town, many were executed in a local soccer stadium. David Rohde, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor who would later win a Pulitzer for his investigation, found that “At a soccer stadium in a nearby town, human feces, blood, and other evidence indicated large numbers of persons were confined, and perhaps shot.”Middle EastIt will probably surprise few that there has been violence in soccer stadiums in the Middle East. The region has both a passion for the game and governments far from averse to using violence.

Soccer in Iraq under Saddam Hussein was controlled his son Odai. The elder son of Saddam tortured many players based on their performances on the field. A 2003 San Francisco Chronicle article depicted some of the brutal practices Odai used to punish players who failed to win matches. Before the games began, the national team would watch videos of Odai preemptively threatening the team if they lost. The threats were very real as the post-game punishments demonstrate:

• A missed penalty kick could bring a humiliating head-shaving at the Stadium of the People.
• Sometimes players were forced to play “matches” in which they would kick concrete balls around the prison yard in 130-degree heat.
• If a player made a number of poor passes, Odai would sometimes call him into the dressing room, where he would be punched or slapped once for every errant pass.
• Another player, Sharar Haddar, has said that Odai dragged him and his teammates over concrete, pulling skin off their backs, then yanked them through a pit so that sand stuck to their raw skin and made them jump in a vat of sewage.

A device used by Odai Hussein to torture Iraqi soccer players

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States, soccer stadiums have continued to witness violence. In 2005, the bodies of 19 Iraqi soldiers were found in the town of Haditha’s soccer stadium. A report in last month’s International Herald Tribune found that the threat of violence has kept many away from stadiums. An Iraqi referee was kidnapped last year just after leaving the Shaab Stadium. And this past December, four members of the Al-Zawra team were injured while training in a Baghdad stadium.

Israel’s 1982 incursion into Lebanon is remembered most for the massacres carried out against Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. At least 800 people were killed when the Israeli army, led by then defense minister Ariel Sharon, turned a blind eye as a Lebanese Christian militia rounded up Palestianians in these two camps and executed them. The murders occurred in many places, one of which was the local soccer stadium. The stadium was initially used as an interrogation center, but according to a report by Israeli journalist Amnon Kapeliouk, “28 dead prisoners were discovered on the premises with their hands tied behind their backs.” Thomas Friedman would win a Pulitzer prize for his reporting on the massacre, and he details how soccer stadiums were the sites of torture and murder.

Conflict involving Israel, its Arab neighbors, and soccer fields arose again in April of 2006. The terrorist group Islamic Jihad fired rockets from the Gaza Strip which landed on the Israeli kibbutz of Karmiya. In response, the Jewish state identified the launching pad for these rockets and bombed it. Where did they bomb? A soccer field.

Other Examples

Numerous other examples exist of political violence perpetrated on soccer fields. Amnesty International has a series of reports condemning police forces for brutally cracking down on crowds in stadiums across the world (Tunisia, Turkey, and Syria for example). The 1968 Olympics in Mexico are remembered for the Tlatelolco Massacre, in which 200 to 300 student demonstrators were killed by army of that country. Reporter Susan Bilello described the lead-up to the event, which occurred near one of the world’s great stadiums, which would host the 1970 and 1986 World Cup finals.

Ten days later, the lighting of the Olympic torch in Aztec Stadium peacefully inaugurated the first games ever hosted by a developing country. Outside the stadium, troops and tanks were poised beyond the view of television cameras.

The violence in the breakaway republic of Chechnya spilled over into the soccer stadium when Russian-installed president Akhmad Kadyrov was killed while at a stadium in the capital Grozny (only three weeks after Kadyrov’s death, the local team, Terek Grozny, won the Russian Cup). And Haiti’s bid for stability has been interrupted by periodic violence, which has included massacres in soccer stadiums (in July and September of 2006). Even a “Play for Peace” match organized to help stamp out violence in the Caribbean country descended into violence, with at least six people killed.

Soccer fields have been the site of political violence throughout history. Dictators, armies, independence fighters, rebels, terrorists, and even peace keepers have perpetrated unspeakable offenses on the pitch. Ugliness has stained the fields of the beautiful game far too often.