Mahfoud Amara

2006 Qatar Asian Games: A ‘Modernization’ Project from Above?

This paper focuses on the 15th Asian Games, which will be staged in Doha. Qatar is the first Arab Middle Eastern country to host the Asian Games, which will be the biggest ever organized, with 45 countries and 40 sports represented. The paper examines the political discourse around the games, and more specifically explores how state leaders, politicians, sports personalities and journalists are discussing the significance and impact of the staging of the Asian Games on the region in general and on Qatari society in particular. Discussing the importance that sport as a phenomenon is assuming in this region assists in highlighting some of the major issues that these societies are facing today. Sport in its multiple forms is becoming a tool for leaders in the Gulf to reposition their countries on the world map.

The governance of professional soccer: Five case studies – Algeria, China, England, France and Japan

Abstract Although there has been a rapid growth in the globalisation of sport and its delivery to world markets, nevertheless there is a variety of models of sport-business whose characteristics are the product of local histories, local political and sporting cultures, local economic conditions and so on. This paper does not seek to deny the increasingly obvious impact of globalisation on professional sport, but rather it seeks to articulate the ways in which such global phenomena are locally mediated in professional soccer systems in five countries, to identify and to explain local responses to global pressures. The five examples include the oldest professional football system, that of England, and a second contrasting European system, France, together with three relatively recently established professional football systems in Japan a developed capitalist economy, Algeria, which is developing a post-socialist sports economy, and China which is experimenting in sport as in other areas with a ‘socialist market economy’. The resultant evolution of professional sporting systems represents distinctive configurations of stakeholders in what are in effect contrasting business models, and reflects a situation of ‘diminishing varieties and increasing contrasts’, in contrast to the claims made by Elias in relation to global cultural phenomena.

Sport, Muslim Identities and Cultures in the UK, an Emerging Policy Issue: Case Studies of Leicester and Birmingham

Abstract An understanding of diversity and its implications for policy is critical to those charged with delivering sporting services in culturally plural societies. This paper reports a research project which aimed to examine how, on the one hand, Muslims in two specific local contexts in the UK (Leicester in the East Midlands; Birmingham in the West Midlands) make sense of the relationship between their religious (Islamic) identities and sporting interests and, on the other, how local policy makers perceived and responded to the sporting needs of these Muslim communities. According to the 2001 census, Leicester and Birmingham represent, respectively, one of the most ethnically diverse areas in Britain and the domicile for one-third of the Muslim population in Britain. Interviews were undertaken with representatives of Muslim organizations, governmental and quasi-governmental sporting organizations, in both cities. Critical Discourse Analysis of interviewees’ responses reveal pluralistic views on a range of issues such as: the “(un)suitability” of the environment/space provided for, or accessed by, Muslims to practise sport; funding; gender equity; equity and social inclusion agenda versus cultural and religious diversities; and a resistance (on the part of policy makers) to target provision at faith groups.

Sport, Arab nationalism and the Pan-Arab Games.

The aim of this article is to outline the manner in which the Pan-Arab Games reflect the tensions within the pan-Arab project of political and cultural unity. Within the movement there has been a traditional cleavage between those advocating the political unification between Arab states and those promoting inter-Arab-nation-state cooperation. The Pan-Arab Games were established by the League of Arab Nations in 1953 as means of expressing cultural unity between Arab peoples across nation-state boundaries. As an institution it is founded therefore on a philosophy of ethno-cultural group identity (based on race and language), rather than on territorial divisions (such as continental games) or philosophies of multi-culturalism and universalism (as is the case for the Olympic Games). The history of the Pan-Arab games has been fraught with difficulties, largely (though not exclusively) founded in the conflict between Israel and the Arab states, as well as the more recent wars in the Gulf and in Afghanistan. The article provides an historical analysis, identifying the implications of these conflicts and the associated divisions in the pan-Arab movement reflected in the recent history of the Games, in particular those held in the Lebanon in 1997 and in Jordan in 1999. It argues that the Games provide a useful lens through which to identify the contradictions of Arab nationalism and pan-Arabism.

Between Globalization and Local 'Modernity': The Diffusion and Modernization of Football in Algeria

This article highlights the importance of football in Algeria as a cultural and political vehicle; a) during the colonial period as a mean of resisting western (colonial) hegemony; b) in the postcolonial era as an instrument mobilized by the FLN (National Liberation Front) state for political legitimation, and international representation of the Algerian socialist development project; and c), in the contemporary context, as part of the transition process towards a market economy. The article also discusses the relationship between football, the transition towards a market economy and the development of a multi-party polity that may be regarded as the most significant precursor to the promotion of the professionalization of football in Algeria. The study aims at synthesizing the history of modern sport in Algeria, particularly football, as part of a transformative, ‘glocal’ process which encompasses the response of Algerian society to the imposition of western modernity and other secular and non-secular ideologies (namely, socialism, populism, pan-Arabism, pan-Africanism, pan-Islamism, and western liberalism). This suggests, in line with the argument of Göle, that though modernity may develop transitionally, it does so in locally distinctive forms and thus (professional) sport in the Algerian context will mean something distinct from sport in other national / local contexts

Veiled Women Athletes in the 2008 Beijing Olympics: Media Accounts

The aim of this paper is to explore and to compare different international media accounts about the presence of veiled athletes in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. In other words, to uncover whether the discourse of clash of cultures or that of cross-cultural dialogue has shaped their position about Islam, Muslim identities, Muslim women and the Muslim world in general. Furthermore, from the perspective of media in the Arab and the Muslim world, the purpose of theanalysis is to explore their responses to international media, and to investigate their positions in relation to the host nation (China), Asian culture and the Olympics.

Transnational network formation through sports related regional development projects in the Arabian Peninsula

The exploration of the phenomenon of regional development through sports related projects in the Arabian Peninsula shows ways in which urban regeneration investment projects affect the regional economy as well as the reverse injection of local capital into global markets. These are traced in the selected three case studies: the Doha 2006 Asian Games, the Bahrain Formula 1 Grand Prix and the Manchester United Football Academy in Dubai. The following major themes arise from the analysis: a) the profusion of risky and bold mega-sports projects that are linked to major urban developments; b) the extensive use of the intangible values and images (goodwill, fair play, and well-being) of sport, that people generally hold, for brand awareness and sales growth purposes; c) the glocalisation of the activity of the various agents (and their business interests) who engage with sport and finally; d) the central role of the royal families, both as political and a business elite, in facilitating the networking between international sport organisations and global and local business interests.

When the Arab World was Mobilised around the FIFA 2006 World Cup

Abstract The paper is an exploratory investigation of the reactions of Arab broadsheets newspapers and other Arab news web sites concerning the exclusive right of the Arab Radio and Television network (ART), which is owned by a Saudi businessman Sheikh Saleh Kamel, to broadcast the FIFA 2006 World Cup to the Middle East and North Africa (ART paid US

Sport, policy and politics in Lebanon

220 million for the exclusive right to broadcast the 2006, 2010 and 2014 FIFA World Cup). In applying a thematic analysis of media contents the paper seeks to link the production of media texts around ART and the FIFA 2006 World Cup to the wider Arab societal (political, economic, cultural and historic) contexts. The aim is to uncover how the general population, the media, political parties and Arab governments responded to ARTs (quasi) control of the 2006 World Cup broadcasts. This has taken place while the region is going through a period of deep socio-economic transformation, a cultural identity crisis, as well as greater internal and external pressures for political change.

Deconstructing the Debate around Sport and the ‘Question’ of ‘Muslim Minorities’ in the West

Lebanon offers an interesting context for the study of sport policy as there is a lack of literature on sport policies in developing countries, and particularly, in small- and multi-confessional societies. Hence, the aim of this study was to illustrate how the dynamic of power between the state and the political parties/confessional communities is reflected in the national sport system. In particular the paper seeks to provide some insight into the mechanism in place to implement the concept of ‘balance of power’ or so-called mosaic society within the national sport system, looking specifically at structure and resource allocation.