Lebanon’s national squad strikes early goal by uniting sectarian fans of domestic clubs
▶ Ahead of their Asian Football Cup opener, Prime Minister Saad Hariri urged the Cedars to ‘be one hand’
Lebanon’s Asian Cup opening game tonight marks a big moment for country as it is the first time the Cedars have qualified for the tournament. But as the boys in red, white and green prepared to fly to the UAE last week, prime minister-designate Saad Hariri had a last-minute request: “Be one hand.”
Nineteen years after they first played in the tournament, for which they automatically qualified as host nation, Lebanon’s political landscape is radically different.
The sectarian divisions that dominate much of public life are more entrenched and seemingly more intractable, in football and in politics.
Which of the 12 Lebanese league clubs fans support depends largely on political or sectarian affiliations.
Three Beirut teams – Nejmeh, Ansar and Ahed – jockey for the top spot in the league. Ahed, who play in the same bright shade of yellow as the powerful Hezbollah, have won three of the last four seasons.
The majority Sunni-backed Ansar, on the other hand, holds world records for consecutive league titles, having taken home 11 during the 1990s.
Despite this, the club’s secretary general, Nabil Badr, ran against a list backed by Mr Hariri, also a Sunni, in last year’s parliamentary elections.
After his drubbing to Mr Hariri’s Future Movement-backed candidates, Mr Badr submitted his resignation as head of the club. But when the dust settled, political intervention led to Mr Badr remaining at the helm.
The off-pitch competition is not always as cordial.
In 2016, Kassem Shamkha became one of a handful of professional Lebanese players to be killed while fighting in Syria. The rising Ahed star died in Aleppo, battling for Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s football association has called on clubs to ban players who have fought in the neighbouring conflict if they try to return, but so far there has been no publicised case of a footballer being barred or of any other player going to fight.
When Ansar and Ahed face off, supporters from each side hurl sectarian chants at each other.
One side glorifies the names of Mr Hariri and his murdered father, former prime minister Rafiq Hariri.
The other cheers on the “resistance”, or Hezbollah, and praise the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Flags of the political parties are interlaced with emblems of the teams. So entrenched is the feeling that games are often played in empty stadiums for fear of violence.
Nejmeh probably sits at the top for number of supporters and once boasted legendary Brazilian footballer Pele as a player.
While the logo of Bankmed, partly owned by Mr Hariri, is printed across the front of the team’s jersey and much of the club’s administration and board are Sunni, the supporters hold a different political vision.
In the stands, the chants are for Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri and the Shiite sect.
While the fans are largely from a single sect, the teams on the pitch are from all backgrounds. Managers usually make a conscious effort to have a diverse squad to try to portray their teams as models of coexistence. The national team is no different.
It is against this background that Mr Hariri gave his instruction for players to be one hand. He was saying, in effect, to leave sectarianism at home.
When the national team plays, it is one of the few times when fans are forced to intermingle and support a common cause for the interest of the nation – and this they do enthusiastically.
At the final training session in Lebanon, when Mr Hariri visited the squad, fans from all over the country filled Nejmeh’s Beirut stadium but they dropped their sectarian chants for patriotic anthems.
The 23-man squad and coaching staff passed through Beirut’s Rafiq Hariri International Airport on their way to the UAE, and Ahed, Nejmeh and Ansar supporters were among the fans out in force to cheer them off.
When the Cedars take to the field tonight for their first game of the tournament, against Qatar, Lebanese citizens at home and abroad will toss their club jerseys aside and don the colours of the national kit.
And while the country might not yet have a Cabinet eight months after parliamentary elections, Mr Hariri and Mr Berri – both avid football fans – will stand with politicians from across the spectrum to back their team.
When the tournament is over, many will be hoping that the spirit behind that rare spell of unity can be used as a template to form a new government.