A Farewell on Syria. Today marks the end of my column “About Ball and the World,” in which for fifteen years I have tried monthly to show what political power football possesses precisely when it is only football. It has this power, because sport does not belong to politics as if it had nothing to do with politics or should not be mixed with politics, and not because it is merely a “mirror of society.” Rather: sport, and especially football, has always been part of political life. It shapes society, it improves it, it can also worsen it. In it lies an enormous democratic potential. If that potential is not uncovered, the power of sport will be used in an authoritarian manner.
Today this column ends with a focus on Syria. On Facebook, the Syrian Arab Football Association (SAF) announced that the national team will henceforth wear green jerseys, no longer red and white. A photo of players in the new kits was provided. This is noteworthy partly because Syria’s team has often been nicknamed the “Red Eagles.” The justification for the color change states that it “shows the first historic change in the history of Syrian sport, away from cronyism, collusion, and corruption.”
Looking at the initial reports after the fall of the Assad regime, one could suppose that football is currying favor with the new rulers by adopting the green jerseys. That is plausible. It could be doing so because SAF had long been a pillar of the regime during the Assad years. It is quite possible that some officials are trying to save their heads, and perhaps even their jobs.
But another reading is also possible: just as no one can currently predict how the anti-Assad coalition will develop, no one can say this about sport either. Football is a political battlefield too; history here is an open process, and here too all major questions are fought over: whether women participate, whether democratic structures emerge, whether minority rights are upheld, whether friendly relations with neighboring countries are cultivated.
Breathing Space in the Stadium
This reading is more realistic. On the one hand, football in Syria is the most popular sport, and since the mid-1960s there has been a reasonably stable professional league. On the other hand, football has always offered spaces for the political opposition: in the stadium, dissent against the Assad regime could be articulated more easily and effectively. When in 2012 the Syrian national team played Japan — the home match was held in Jordan because of the civil war — there were two Syrian fan blocks: regime supporters backed Syria, while the opposition stood in the opposite stand and beat drums for Japan. Syria won 2:1, and the Assad regime was still in place.
What role football can play in a regime change became evident during the Arab Spring more than ten years ago. Ultras from Egypt, from Tunisia, from Algeria, and also from Syria, militantized for their rights and interests — and their voices almost never align with those of authoritarian regimes. Sport, after all, demands—as it comes very close to the civic happiness ideal—that all people who wish to participate can do so. Struggles for participation in sport are democracy.
For fifteen years, this space has been a column about the politics of football. Next year I will continue with boxing; the column will be called “Left Hook.” That, too, is political. And there will be battles there as well.
