A Qatari flag is seen at a park near the Doha Corniche, in Doha, Qatar, Feb. 17, 2018. Photo: Reuters / Ibraheem al Omari.
The football pitch has long pitted country against country. But recent developments suggest that the goalposts might have shifted, transforming the pitch into a proxy war battlefield.
Last spring, Qatar deployed its state-financed broadcast network, beIn Media Group, to sabotage Saudi Arabia’s effort to purchase Newcastle United. The company, which holds regional broadcasting rights for Premier League games, contacted all 20 teams in the league and accused Riyadh of “siphoning off its broadcast signals.”
While this might have been a business move, it could also have been another skirmish in Qatar’s “proxy war” against Saudi Arabia and its allies — the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt — over the question of Islamism.
Roughly since 2011, a Saudi Arabian axis has opposed Qatar’s terrorism financing and Iran ties. Qatar has given Hamas $1.1 billion, backed the Muslim brotherhood, and sponsored Islamists in civil wars destabilizing Libya, Syria, and Yemen. In 2017, the Riyadh axis launched a blockade against Qatar that lasted three and a half years. The blockade ended in January, but tensions continue to simmer — especially on the football pitch.
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March 25, 2021 12:30 pm
Despite its small size, Qatar enjoys great influence and oil wealth. It has given nearly $5 billion to US universities, and sponsors Al Jazeera. It is now seeking to exert international cultural influence through football, the world’s most popular sport. Football offers Qatar an opportunity to supplant Saudi and Emirati influence, seize the world’s attention, and sanitize its Islamism.
The UAE largely sponsors world football, but Qatar would like to change that. Jaimie Fuller, president of the Foundation for Sports Integrity, said in an interview, “The UAE has engaged in football [investment] for quite some time. It appears its primary…