ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief introduction to association football in the Middle East. It outlines the initial development of the game, from the colonial era to the formation of respective national football associations in the period following colonisation, and the affiliation of these football associations with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). A summary of the success of Middle Eastern nations and clubs in AFC-sanctioned tournaments is promoted, together with an analysis of the AFC's football development plan for the region. The potential legacy of the Qatar 2022 World Cup is also discussed, along with the wider significance of association football in the Middle East.
140 Case Study: The FIFA World Cup
Every four years the FIFA World Cup represents the preeminent showcase for association football in the world; it has been competed for by national teams since 1930. There is no bigger global sporting event than the FIFA World Cup and no other sporting tournament can inspire the same level of passion and commitment. For example, the average audience viewing figures per match for the 2002 World Cup was 314 million people worldwide (Hunt, 2006). Middle Eastern countries have qualified on numerous occasions for the FIFA World Cup, but to date none has made a significant impact on the final stages of the tournament, with the recent exception of Saudi Arabia and Iran at the 1994 and 1998 finals, respectively.
At the 1994 World Cup Finals, held in the United States of America, Saudi Arabia met 1986 World Cup semi-finalists Belgium in a game they had to win to progress to the second round of the competition. Saudi Arabia had lost its opening group game to Holland 2–1, despite taking an unexpected early lead, and had then beaten Morocco by the same score line in their second game. In the match against Belgium, which was played on 29 June 1994 in front of 52,959 spectators at the Robert F Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington, DC, Saudi Arabia won 1–0 to secure a famous victory. This was due to a remarkable individual goal by Saeed Al Owairan who ran from his own half past five Belgian defenders and the goalkeeper before scoring (Hunt, 2006). This performance earned Al Owairan the nickname of the ‘Desert Pele’ and with it the 1994 Asian Footballer of the Year award. Saudi Arabia went on to lose 3–1 to eventual semi-finalists Sweden in the second round, but their legacy was guaranteed as the first Middle Eastern country to make it through to the knock-out stages of the World Cup finals.
At the next World Cup finals, held in France in 1998, the national team of Iran also caused quite a stir with some fine perfor-mances. In their second group game Iran faced the USA in a match laden with political rhetoric and was labelled by the media as something of a grudge match (Hunt, 2006). The USA were strong favourites for the game played in Lyon on 21 June 1998 in front of a crowd of 49,000, as Iran had never won a match in the World Cup finals, despite famously drawing with Scotland in 1978. Both teams needed to win the game to keep their chances of qualifying for the knock-out stages alive. In a pulsating, end-to-end game, Iran won 2–1, thanks to goals from Hamid Estili and Mehdi Mahdavikia. It was an historic first ever win at the World Cup finals for Iran and a victory that was celebrated throughout the 141Middle East (Chehabi, 2006) with the Iranian players returning home as heroes, despite losing their final group game 2–0 to Germany.
These two examples show the importance attached to performing well on the world stage at the FIFA World Cup, as it integrates otherwise comparatively marginalised countries in the context of football more fully on the global stage. Following the 1998 World Cup a number of Iranian players secured offers to play overseas for European clubs, particularly in Germany (Chehabi, 2006). Middle Eastern countries will be hoping for more such impressive performances when Qatar becomes the first ever Middle Eastern country to host the finals of the FIFA World Cup in 2022. The significance of this and the potential legacy of the tournament for the Middle East are dealt with later in this chapter.
