Syria: Football on the frontline
AThe walls of the sports hall vibrate when yet another mortar bomb lands close by. Two hundred children, competing in a regional taekwondo tournament, barely flinch at the sound of the detonation.
This is part of daily life in Syria’s war- t o r n cap i t a l Damascus. The children trying to win medals on this particular Friday morning have known nothing else during their short, turbulent lives. “In this sport complex, more than 170 mortars have landed,” says Brigadier General Mowaffak Joumaa, the president of Syria’s national Olympic committee who is in the audience.
“If we hide after each mortar, the terrorists will soon arrive to our homes.”
You can’t speak of daily life in Syria without looking at the impact the violence has had - and sport is no different. For the past six years the country has been ravaged by war and the stories that have been told are horrifying and de-humanising in equal measure.
Since the uprising began in 2011, there has been little positivity spoken in connection with the country, but then there is the remarkable story of Syria’s national football team.
The relationship that exists between this national team and its people depicts the power of sport on a personal, cultural and political level.
It goes to the heart of what makes sport matter.
The Dream
More than 4,500 miles away - in the lobby of a five-star Malaysian hotel south of Kuala Lumpur - a group of Syrian footballers await check-in.
Some are arguing demonstrably about Real Madrid - the names Zidane and Ronaldo mixing with their passionate Arabic. Others sit quietly on their mobile phones.
This is Syria’s national football team and their presence here in Malaysia is the culmination of a journey travelled by more than just themselves and their teammates.
In October last year, playing in a World Cup 2018 qualifier away from home in Beijing, this side representing their war- torn nation of 23m people beat China - a country of 1.4bn that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its president’s plan for footballing success.
The players celebrated by going shopping with their win bonus.
This week, they are preparing to play Uzbekistan in arguably the most important game in their nation’s footballing history - and one that will make reaching the play-offs for a place at the World Cup in Russia next year a real possibility. mid the idealism of the late-1960s, a fellow-student of my acquaintance was shattered to hear that a famed protest-songster had admitted that, his primary motivation was mercenary. Deeply shaken, my acquaintance announced, if he ever discovered Simon and Garfunkel weren’t sincere, he would be forced to end it all.
Any such desperate response in my psyche was more inclined to relate to my footy team getting done in a final by Richmond or, to Australia losing the Ashes. It’s fair to say, Sport had an inflated priority in my life.
Sometimes though, there is cause for serious Sport- related gloom and, such a moment came during the week. American anti- doping boss Travis Tygart has compared the World Anti- Doping Agency (WADA) to a fox guarding the hen house.
This cannot but leave those who care about clean Sport, feeling thoroughly depressed. That Tygart is the man who brought down Lance Armstrong, and did so in the United States where the cheating Cyclist was a national hero, places him among the most credible of anti-doping figures.
Tygart’s concern is at WADA’s lack of independence. WADA is constituted in such a way as to be not entirely separate from the Sports it polices. It is, thus
Win the game and they will earn a $1,000 (£800) bonus each, around a year’s wages for the average Syrian footballer and more money than most of the population can dream of in a country that has seen its currency devalue by around 1,000% since the start of the war.
So why Malaysia?
Economic sanctions, as well as security fears, mean no games can take place inside Syria and they are forced to play their home fixtures at neutral venues in front of very few fans.
That is easier said than done when you are a state with very few friends on the global stage. They came within one day of forfeiting this World Cup campaign entirely, given a lack of viable hosts.
It all serves to make their achievements all the more incredible.
Is there any other national team for whom a win and two draws in qualifying would not only mean so much but also be considered a great achievement?
A month before the victory against China, Syria drew against former World Cup semi-finalists South Korea. These results mean gradually, the footballing world is starting to pay attention to Syria for sporting reasons.
But this is not entirely a good news story.
There is no ignoring the control that president Bashar Assad’s regime tries to exert over its citizens and, once again, sport is no different.
The relative success of the team is both a passing panacea and a propaganda opportunity, the former for the people and the latter for the president.
To present a thriving football culture to the world fits in entirely with the agenda of normalisation, of having quelled the rebellion, of stabilisation and control.
However, as we discovered, the reality is far from that.
There is a privilege to being a sports journalist, reporting on some of the biggest sporting events and stories from around the world.
Despite having more than 30 years experience between us this assignment was like no other and took us to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and finally Malaysia.
Ultimately, this is a story of 23 Syrian footballers, 23m Syrian people, 4.9m refugees, six years of war and one president.
The National Game
“We want our players to play outside Syria, we need our players to play outside Syria”.
There is perhaps no more telling indictment of the crisis in Syrian football than the national team’s assistant coach actively encouraging their best players to leave the troubled country and play abroad.
Tarek Jabban not only coaches for his country, but was one of the most decorated footballers in Syrian league history. A player before the war, he knows better than most how far the national game has fallen since fighting began six years ago.
The league is in such a state of decay that players here do not have the support or the access to facilities that can be offered abroad.
Many already have left, and the majority of the 23 players who are in Malaysia this week are currently playing abroad, many of them star players including captain Ahmad Al Salih, who plays for Henan Jianye in China. Firas Al-Khatib one of the squads most experienced players plays for Al Kuwait.
Omar Kharbin is another to earn a fortune by Syrian standards playing for one of the Middle East’s most famous teams, Al- Hilal in Saudi Arabia. Arguably the best player still based in Syria is his cousin Osama Omari, he plays with Al-Wahda in Damascus, and is top scorer in the league.
Unlike the others, Omari has no option to move away. He was conscripted into the army and is on release to the Al-Wahda football club from the Ministry of Defence. Many left before the war and other young men, including Kharbin, avoided the draft by merit of being an only child.
Such are the fine margins of life here.
As a result of the conflict, the league has shrunk geographically, with teams playing only in areas where government exerts control. Effectively the league has been centered around two major cities, Damascus and Latakia. But as the regime retook rebel-held areas in some of the places most devastated by the war, football has begun to expand again and in January of this year football returned to the city of Aleppo. Games are also played further south in Homs now.
The rapid return of football to these areas shows the government’s desire to use the game to display life as returning to normal and of the war as being won. What could be more normal than going to a football match?
But like the normality, this “growth” of the game is an illusion.
The truth is that the league is in crisis.
Years of economic sanctions and a crash in the value of the Syrian pound have meant that there is no money in the league. There is no money in the Syrian FA which runs the league.
We are told private investment is minimal and it’s government money that keeps it afloat. Attendances are poor at all but a handful of games because the fans have little money and there are legitimate security fears around gathering in large public crowds.
The average salary of a good Syrian player in the domestic league is just $200 (£161) a month. That’s a good wage by Syrian standards but can’t compare with the money available elsewhere. The team that wins the league gets just $10,000 (£8,000).
It is against this backdrop that the best players have left and that the clubs are unable to attract any overseas talent. Unsurprisingly there are no foreign players in the league.
One player who left before the war was Mohannad Ibrahim, he developed through the youth system of Al Karamah in Homs, one of the oldest clubs in the country. Now aged 30, he was an established international, but then left to go to Saudi Arabia and the Czech Republic before now playing in Jordan for Kufr Som.
“In general the economic situation in Syria is now difficult and of course this reflects on sport,” says Ibrahim. “I know many members of the team and I am in contact with them and they are all facing very difficult living conditions.
So many of them are looking for any opportunity to go and play professionally outside the country so they can leave and get their family out of the country to have a better life.”
He last played for the national team in 2011. He says he has received many invitations since to play for the team but had declined for what he describes as personal reasons, rather than political ones. “Of course I wish to be with them but as you know there are many conditions that prevent me from being committed with the team, and those same conditions obliged me to apologise to join the team, nevertheless my heart is with them I wish them the best of luck. I wish they can perform the best level they can and qualify, and to be one of the best-qualified teams.”
We went to see a domestic league fixture between Al-Shorta [the police team] and Jableh who come from near Latakia on the Mediterranean coast.
The game is being played at the Tishreen stadium in Damascus on a Friday afternoon. The army patrol the gates to this complex with machine guns, a reminder of the security fears that mean many won’t come and why attendances remain low.
This ground, more than any, is proof of that. Four years ago in a hotel on the complex, Youssef Suleiman, a player from Homsbased al-Wathbah club, was killed by a mortar as he prepared to play a game here in the Syrian domestic league.
Inside the ground what fans have made it are in good voice. Drums and songs from a small corner echo around a ground empty on three sides. There are about 300 people here.
One fan who has brought his young family along is not deterred.
“It is very important to keep hope and to stay optimistic,” he tells us. “Live our life in normal way, in sport, in everything. The kids need to live a normal life, what’s happening is not their fault, they need to watch sport, go to their schools, go to public parks, they have to.
We need always to look forward, to be optimistic and to have hope, otherwise the life will be stopped.”
At half- time we are allowed down on to the running track that goes round the pitch. We are there to meet the man in charge of the Syrian national team and the man chiefly responsible for their run of results in qualifying.
As we wait, we get a closer look at the pitch - bald patches of dry earth and a very coarse greenery that barely resembles grass. It is no wonder the first half was delayed so much by injuries.
The head coach Ayman Hakeem knows the problems well: “Those results we made until now is a miracle, because of the very bad circumstances we are living, all the other teams play in their homes but we can’t, we play outside all the time. What we did until now is a proof of the high spirit our players have.”
Over his shoulder, a huge bill- board of President Bashar Assad dominates the empty stand behind the goal. It is a reminder of the war that is the backdrop to everything in Syria. Its effect on domestic football, as well as neutral venues and lack of friendlies for the national team mean the odds are stacked against Syria more than any other team, but the coach is not put off.
In football nothing is impossible, there is always hope, we try to stay optimistic all the time despite all the difficulties we are facing we will do our best. After the next game we will know more if we are going to make the miracle and arrive to World Cup”.
As we return to the stands, walking with the national coach, the crowd begin to chant “Russia, Russia, Russia”. We think it is in recognition of their World Cup campaign, but our translator tells us it because they think we are Russian. They presumably think the only western media allowed or even interested in Syrian football would be Russian.
The match finishes 3- 2 to Jableh, like many high- scoring affairs the standard is poor, which confirms the expectations.
It wasn’t always like this though.
Footballing culture runs deep in Syria and before the rebellion began the national game was flourishing. An example of its popularity and reach came in 2005 when the women’s national team played their first competitive match.The men are attracting all the attention right now, but Syria’s women’s team are about to embark on their own World Cup pre-qualifying campaign too, in many ways just as significant as the men’s.
Unlike their male counterparts, games stopped entirely because of the war. They have not played a competitive international since 2011 and after waiting six years are now about to play four games in eight days in Vietnam.
Noor Jrees is 21 and is in the squad that are basing themselves at Syrian FA headquarters before heading out to Hanoi.
Jrees said: “We have the power to participate, and we have the hope that we are going to make good results of course with all the support we have and the coaches who are helping a lot, we will make good results”.
Whether it’s the women or the men, national or club, there is a definite enthusiasm for football here but it is in spite of the situation, fighting the atrophy in the infrastructure and quality of domestic football, against the backdrop of war.
Ibrahim told us that the Syrian fans are “the smile” of the game.
They haven’t had much to smile about recently, but their national teams are doing their very best to change that. Courtesy BBC