The English term ”political football” takes on new meaning in Iraq where the game and politics are as intertwined as to be almost united.
So united in fact that most people on the terraces return a blank stare when asked if sport in President Saddam Hussein’s Iraq is at the service of politics. Few would even bother to doubt it, particularly if they had turned up to Monday night’s match between two top-level teams, Al-Zawra and the Police Club, called to celebrate the presidential referendum the following day.
Even the giant hi-tech scoreboard kept flashing up pictures of Saddam who was to be returned to office for another seven years with as much as 100% of the vote. England’s Michael Owen might manage it one day or Zinedine Zidane in France, but George Bush?
A huge section of the crowd had been given large cards to create changing images of the strongman, variously smiling benignly, caught in an official pose or part of a tableau including a Scud missile ripping through Israel’s Star of David flag beneath Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock mosque.
Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan attended Monday night, winning plenty of applause. The crowd belted out plenty of ”Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole” and thunderous peals of rhythmical clapping as elsewhere in the world, but just getting your head kicked in does not merit a mention.
The Baghdad boys offer a far more disturbing line in violence, of the Islamic political martyrdom variety. ”With our soul and with our blood we sacrifice ourselves for you, Saddam,” is one of the more popular chants echoing beneath the stands as the supporters wait for the teams to emerge.
And by all accounts plenty of them mean it. Blood sacrifice may seem to be pushing it a bit far, but some 500 000 young Iraqis are said to have died in the 1980-1988 war with Iran and countless tens of thousands more are believed to have fallen under the bombs of the 1991 Gulf War.
With the threat of conflict clouding the horizon again such matches are set up as an occasion for the authorities to whip up plenty of nationalist fervour. But any would-be football hooligan in Iraq, where life can be brutally hard, faces challenges his softer Western counterpart might find a tad too tough.
Outside the packed Al-Shaab or People’s stadium, with an official capacity of 50 000, soldiers stood hands on machine guns mounted on pickup trucks. Saddam’s ”fedayin” troops in black balaclavas patrolled the area, Kalashnikovs raised into the air. Inside the stadium, crash-helmeted riot police, military police, and baton-wielding crowd controllers and other soldiers were all active shoving and pushing people into place.
Taking on that lot might require a leap of imagination for your average hooligan. And without beer too. Many a hard case from the West might baulk at the poetry reading as well. The dramatic verse in praise of Saddam resounded over the sound system and despite a lot of chanting, the poet carried on valiantly. But then another poet, Khodair Hadi, won massive applause when he took a bow before the fans.
And all the pretty girls jostled to have their photos taken on his arm. It’s just not football as you know it. – Sapa-AFP