The center forward and Mecca. Football, Islam and petrodollars [libro]

The most beautiful phrase of the investigative book The center forward and Mecca. Football, Islam and petrodollars (Paesi Edizioni) is the one that reports what he said Bill Shankly, legendary Liverpool manager: “Many people believe that football is a matter of life and death, not only do I disagree with this statement, but I can assure you that it is an infinitely more important matter.” A hyperbole that all football lovers agree on but, as he explains Rocco Bellantoneeditor of the volume created by several authors, football, in addition to being a multi-billion dollar business, is also a question of faith.

In the preface, Roberto Tottoli, full professor of Islamic Studies and rector of the L’Orientale University of Naples, tries to summarize the themes addressed in the essay: “On football, the debate within the Muslim world is very open. There are religious authorities and members of Islamic communities who brand this sport as ‘forbidden’. In recent decades, in particular, several Muslim scholars have taken a radical position towards football, declaring that watching it must especially be prohibited, as this would create situations of promiscuity and feelings of embarrassment in those who attend the matches. Other scholars, however, give a positive opinion on physical and sporting activity as a whole, and therefore also on football, as long as it does not harm the integrity of the human body and as long as the sporting practices do not lead to the vision of athletes’ private parts,” he writes.

“There are markedly traditionalist realities such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, or jihadist organizations such as the Nigerians of Boko Haram and the Somalis of Al Shabaab, who, referring to radical imams, impose the absolute prohibition of football to prevent the adoption of foreign practices in the territories they control . On the other hand, more permissive views prevail, through which those in power try to ride the sporting phenomenon to obtain consensus. From Central Asia to the Far East, and especially in North Africa, attention to what happens in football is therefore increasingly evident. An emblematic case of this trend is that of the Gulf countries. These countries, strongly rooted in traditional views of Islam until twenty years ago, have increased their interest in football and, based on this, have changed very quickly in recent years. There are countries like Qatar, which was awarded the 2022 Football World Cupin which we are witnessing a controlled opening.”

The Gulf countries

Rocco Bellantone, journalist and co-founder of the publishing house Paese Edizioni, analyzes the historical turning point of the football World Cup organized in 2022 in the kingdom of Qatar, an event that has changed the fate of the world faith which has only one temple: the football pitch . “And then there is the God of money, the same one who in 2010 indicated the path that would lead to the small but fierce emirate of Qatar for the organization of the 2022 football World Cup. A historic turning point and which in fact, since then , has projected the world of football that matters – the European one so to speak – into a new phase”, he writes in the introduction. This is confirmed by Marco Bellinazzo, journalist for The sun 24 hours. “It all started in the summer of 2008 with the acquisition of Manchester City by the Arab sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan” – he explains – “Then in 2010 there was the assignment of the Football World Cup to Qatar and subsequently the acquisition of Paris Saint Germain by the Qatari entrepreneur Nasser Al-Khelaïfi. These three pieces change the international football scenario in which a geographical area makes space and suddenly becomes the protagonist of a series of acquisitions of some of the most important clubs in Europe, to the point of going where until a few years ago it would have been difficult to imagine any type of interest of Qatar and, above all, of Saudi Arabia.” A story that is continually intertwined with the controversy over human rights, lo sportswashingthe use of football as a tool of soft power for the Gulf powers.

The result of a collective effort (Marco Cochi, Beniamino Franceschini, Stefano Piazza, Marco Spiridigliozzi Davide Vannucci), the book tells anecdotes and secret passions for football, even on the part of tyrants and terrorists. Erdoganfor example, was a striker and was nicknamed Imam Beckembauer; Osama Bin Laden he was not only the mastermind of Al-Qaeda, but also an Arsenal fan; the dictator Saddam Hussein (who tortured footballers and sentenced them to death when they made mistakes or made them play with a reinforced concrete ball, ed.) had even recruited four Brazilian coaches who were defined The Caliphs of Baghdad. Davide Vannucci, for example, tells the story of the Turkish Sultan and the connections between politics and football affairs in Turkey. And he also tells the story of Hakan Sukur, the glory of Anatolian football who enters the political arena and, in the duel between Erdogan and Gulen, ends up in exile in California. “Turkey wants Europe but Europe doesn’t want Turkey: Hakan’s parable almost seems like the symbol of this failed integration,” writes Vannucci. Now Hakan is an Uber driver.

Follow the money

In the chapter Follow the money, Stefano Piazza instead tells the story of the sovereign funds of the Gulf countries “who entered this business with a straight leg by bringing to the table an unlimited spending capacity, great ambitions, and above all the economic and political strength to overcome the moments of crisis which in football are inevitable.” And he details the Qatari assault, which uses sport as instrument of economic and political expansion in the West. A growth that also occurs through other investments, from real estate to mosques and cultural centers – especially in France, but also in Spain (where Piazza talks about the failed case of the purchase of Malaga) and to a lesser extent in Italy – and which leads to reflect on the dilemma of the relationship between Europe and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Caliphs of Baghdad

Marco Spiridigliozzi focuses on the story of the Caliphs of Baghdad, four Brazilian coaches chosen by the dictator Saddam Hussein to lead the Iraqi national team to the 1986 Mexican World Cup. The author of this chapter also tells the story of the Brazilian coach, Jorvan Viera, who led the Iraqi national team to win the Asian Cup in 2007 and narrates the parable of Iraqi Pelè: Younis Mahmoud, the captain who scored the winning goal in the final in Jakarta against the Saudis. “The goal that all of Iraq has always been waiting for,” writes Piazza. United, with Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish players, Iraq had won. A fairy tale that will remain in the textbooks of football history.

The handshake between Iranians and Americans

Another gem that the layman discovers in The center forward and Mecca. Football, Islam and petrodollars it is the only known handshake between Iranians and Americans. It happened in 1998 in Lyon in a match in which the two rival teams, excluded from the World Cup, were nevertheless under the spotlight due to fear of attacks. By drawing lots it was the Iranians’ turn to meet the Americans for the ritual handshake. Legend has it that Ayatollah Khamenei ordered his players not to move. It was the Americans who went to meet the Iranian players who returned the greeting, sending an unrepeatable signal of détente.

Iran’s ban on women and stadiums used for executions in Afghanistan

The rest is known: in Iran women cannot enter stadiums and everyone knows the heroic story of Sahar Khodayari, a 29-year-old originally from the village of Salm, who died on 29 September 2019 after setting herself on fire to avoid being subjected to the trial in which she accused of entering the stadium in men’s clothing, which has been closed to women since 1981, two years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini came to power. The other chapters tell the troubled stories of African footballers which are intertwined with migratory routes and the trafficking of minors; football banned by the Taliban, the stadium used for executions during the first regime of Koranic students, the flight of all footballers after their return to power.

Football and jihad

The center forward and Mecca. Football, Islam and petrodollars concludes with an analysis by Marco Cochi on the toxic relationship between football and jihad. And how the immoderate passion of Africans for football is opposed by Islamist groups. Yet, among the jihadists we also find footballers. Like the Tunisian Nizar Trabelsi, arrested by the Belgian police two days after the attack on the Twin Towers: he was planning to detonate 950 kg of explosives in the Kleine-Brogel military base. Many years earlier he had arrived in Belgium to kick a ball, also playing in the Bundesliga, before the oblivion and radicalization that took him to Afghanistan, where Osama Bin Laden had entrusted him with the “mission” six months before the September 11 attack. ” to destroy the Buddha statues in the Bamyan Valley. He is now serving a life sentence in America.

The center forward and Mecca. Football, Islam and petrodollars it is a book full of suggestions and also useful because it helps to understand geopolitics through universal faith in football.