SOCCER / JULIE CART : Iraq, Iran May Pose Security Threat
World Cup security officials have long identified some fans of England and the Netherlands as the most high-profile threats to peace during next summer’s World Cup.
But those teams, their tradition of soccer success notwithstanding, are in danger of failing to qualify for the final.
Indeed, the most pressing security threat may lie not in Europe, but in the Asian qualifying zone. There, both Iraq and Iran easily won their qualifying groups and will begin the final round of qualifying in the middle of October. They join Saudi Arabia, North Korea, South Korea and Japan in a group from which the top two teams qualify.
Last week, the U.S. State Department refused to allow Libyan athletes into the country to compete in the World University Games at Buffalo, N.Y., citing Libya’s link to terrorism as reason to refuse visas to the delegation.
This raises the question of how the State Department might feel about allowing soccer teams from Iraq and Iran into the United States for the World Cup.
Both teams have a good chance to advance. Iraq won Group A with a 6-1-1 record, beating a strong Chinese team. Iran was tied with Syria at the top of Group B, but advanced because of a better goal differential. Iran outscored its opponents, 15-2.
Neither team has been considered a soccer powerhouse. Both countries entered World Cup qualifying for the first time in 1974. Iran qualified for its only World Cup final in 1978, when it was held at Argentina, and Iraq also qualified once, in 1986 at Mexico. Neither team made it out of the first round.
Interestingly, speculation has been that one of the teams in the U.S. World Cup group--based in Los Angeles--would come from the Asian qualifying group. The thinking is that North or South Korea or Japan would draw a large fan base and ensure sellouts in the early rounds, games that are usually sparsely attended.
In addition, no Asian team is considered a threat to prevent the U.S. team from advancing to the second round.
But the specter of Iraq or Iran, or both, qualifying is something that World Cup officials hadn’t counted on.
FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, is watching the developments with interest.
“It is true, the Iraq situation could be explosive,” FIFA spokesman Guido Tognoni told the Associated Press. “But we do not expect it. In soccer, everyone is friendly.”
The sport’s history well documents how ridiculous that statement is.
In Iraq, the national team’s success is viewed as a way to heal wounds of the Gulf War. Final retribution will come, according to Iraqi newspapers, when the national soccer team beats its Gulf War oppressors. The team will play a qualifying game against Saudi Arabia Oct. 24 in Qatar. Success could mean a match against the “evil” U.S. team.
If the Iraqis link soccer success with political clout, that makes them no different than many of the world’s sporting nations. But, as is also the case in many nations, soccer is often the focal point for violence and frustration. According to reports, nine people were killed and 120 wounded during the celebrations in Baghdad after Iraq beat China in World Cup qualifying.
Iran, an old enemy of the United States, is also not a State Department favorite. Last week, Egyptian authorities revealed that they had learned that the World Trade Center bombing was in part planned by Iranian intelligence agents.
There seems little on the diplomatic horizon that would indicate either Iraq or Iran might become favored nations before June. What would become of the World Cup tournament if the State Department refused to allow either team into the country?
What might happen if they did?
FIFA has on file a letter from the U.S. government promising full cooperation in allowing athletes from all World Cup finalist nations into the country.
“We have assurance that our government will extend all courtesy to the qualifiers,” said World Cup spokesman John Griffin last week.
Organizers of the World University Games produced a similar letter when it was awarded the bid in 1989.
The entire episode underscores a running theme in international competition: sports and politics are only linked when it’s politically expedient.
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Michael Weisman, former executive producer of NBC Sports who will serve as television consultant for World Cup ’94 and its liaison with ABC and ESPN, faces a difficult task.
His mandate is to somehow create viewer interest in a country that has produced poor ratings for soccer and develop events around the World Cup that create interest in the tournament and the game of soccer.
One of Weisman’s ideas is to put on an all-star game late in the World Cup, with teams made up of star players from nations that didn’t qualify for the final or were eliminated during the early rounds.
Enticing players to stick around and play in an exhibition game would require significant cash incentives, but should be a crowd-pleasing spectacle.
Weisman would also like to see a FIFA soccer Hall of Fame established, an idea that has been out there for years but no one has made work. Weisman says that Hall of Fame voting, with its inherent subjectivity, creates controversy and fan interest. The biggest problem lies in getting FIFA to adopt the concept and continue it.
Some of Weisman’s ideas are sound, but his television roots show when he suggests a hybrid game to be televised during the World Cup-- beach soccer .
Men and women slogging through sand in skimpy trunks and bikinis, underneath a blue sky and with waves crashing in the background, makes lovely television. In fact, it brings to mind the viewer-friendly professional beach volleyball circuit and all its sponsors.
The creation of something as silly as beach soccer is precisely what critics of the United States as host of the World Cup have been waiting for. This is a country, they argue, that does not display the proper reverence for the world’s greatest game. American hucksterism, they predict, will reduce the world’s single largest sporting event to commercials and product placements, broken only by brief spurts of soccer.
Those criticisms may sound ridiculous, but so does the idea of beach soccer. If soccer enthusiasts want to bring a soccer ball to the beach and kick it around, great. But that doesn’t make it a sport.
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Joseph Blatter, the general-secretary of world soccer’s governing body, predicts that European champion Olympique Marseille will be barred from future European competition.
In an interview with the newspaper SonntagsBlick, Blatter said Sunday he expected French authorities to issue a ruling next week in the bribery scandal.
Blatter said if charges of corruption and match fixing were proved, then FIFA would ban the involved players from all international matches. He added that if it turned out that the players were acting on management instructions, then Marseille would be suspended from international competition.
Marseille player Jean-Jacques Eydelie last week admitted offering bribes to three players from the Valenciennes team to play badly in a French league match to help Marseille save its energy for the European Champions Cup final against Italy’s AC Milan.
Eydelie told police he was acting on orders from the club’s general manager, Jean-Pierre Berne. Berne’s lawyer said Eydelie made his so-called confession purely so he could be released from jail.
Soccer Notes
U.S. national team player contracts are up in September, which may make for energetic play until then. The team’s full-time players are sweating out end of CONCACAF Gold Cup, where Coach Bora Milutinovic will get his last look at the player pool before the team goes on vacation until the end of August. Many players believe Milutinovic will have a good idea of his World Cup roster by then. . . . Thirteen cities have tendered bids to host the early rounds of the 1996 Olympic soccer tournament. Cites as far away from Atlanta as Washington, D.C., Boston and Columbus, Ohio, have bid. Four venues will be selected, with the semifinal and final to be held in either Atlanta or Athens, Ga.
