Football Special Report: The Arab World’s Failure at Football
Football is very popular in the Arab world. It is not only in countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia that play the game heavily; it has permeated into the lives of citizens of almost every country in the Middle East. However, for some reason, representation of any Arab country on the international stage is always scant and negligible. Out of all the countries in that part of the world, only Saudi Arabia has managed to make it to the World Cup finals four times but has only made it to the second round once. What are the reasons for this and can anything be done to reverse the situation? With a strong bid in the pipeline for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup, is it possible to one day see when an Arab country lifts the World Cup trophy.
Football came to the Arab world a long time ago, was one of the first sports that the countries that make up that part of the world embraced, and started to follow. Passions run very deep in regards to football all over the Arab world. During a 2009 World Cup qualifying match between Egypt and Algeria, fans started fights amongst each other and Egyptian fans threw rocks at the Algerian team leaving four of the players injured. Algeria eventually won that match and made it to the World Cup in South Africa. Fans even started to riot when Al-Jazeera’s sport broadcast of a football match was disrupted due to signal problems. These examples just show us how strongly football fever runs in the Middle East and the Arab world.
A few countries in that part of the world have been impressive over the years. Egypt is one country that has shown a lot of promise in the sport for a long time but again they have not been able to achieve any sort of excellence on the international stage. One of the national football clubs in the country, Al Ahly, was named as the African football club of the century in 2000. This shows that there is a huge amount of talent to be found but for some reason it stays restricted to that particular part of the world. The country has been impressive in other venues as well, it has won the African Nations Cup a record seven times but it has only appeared in the FIFA World Cup twice, the first time in 1934 and the last in 1990.
Saudi Arabia is another strong football country among Arabic speaking nations. It has a very prolific club scene with some very talented clubs playing against each other. On the international stage, the country has managed to reach the World Cup finals four times, from 1990 to 2006 and has managed to reach the second round once in 1994, where they lost to Sweden. However, like Egypt, the country has not been able to stamp its authority on the football world.
What are the reasons behind this lack of success on the international stage? It could be that not enough investment is going into the football programmes of the countries, but oil rich Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the U.A.E. and others, should be pouring money into their youth football programmes to try and find the next batch of footballers that can represent them internationally. The talent pool seems to be very thin, so thin in fact that some Arab countries have resorted to giving foreign footballers nationalities so they can help them win matches. Qatar tried to make three Brazilians Qatari nationals in order to help the team get to the World Cup. Ailton, Dede, and Leandro were each offered $1 million to become citizens of the country. FIFA stepped in and said that it could not happen and the matter was closed. They might not need to look abroad if they can cultivate their own pool of talent. The countries might also think about hiring outside help to enhance their football programmes.
With FIFA president Sepp Blatter giving his personal recommendation that Qatar should host the 2022, World Cup, it is a very positive sign that the country has a serious chance of hosting it in 12 years time. We will have to wait and see what the country can do in the meantime and this should be a wakeup call to all Arab nations that they have 12 years to get themselves ready if they want to have any chance of making a strong showing then.
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