Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and his flailing Muslim Brotherhood have turned to foreign policy and soccer to improve their battered image in advance of a planned mass anti-government protest at the end of this month and mounting calls for his resignation.

In a bid to distract attention from his domestic...

With three days left in the run-up to Iran' presidential election, Supreme Leader Sayed Ali Khamenei has more to worry about than ensuring that a sufficiently malleable candidate emerges as winner. A crucial victory on Tuesday in Iran's 2014 World Cup qualifier could bring thousands into the streets in celebrations...

There is a lesson to be learned from this year's Formula One public relations disaster in Bahrain, trade union pressure on Qatar, controversy over Israel's hosting of the FIFA Under-21 finals, last year's successful International Olympic Committee (IOC) campaign that forced three reluctant Muslim nations to field for the first...

If there is one lesson Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan should have drawn from the popular revolts that toppled four Arab leaders and sparked civil war in Syria in the last two years, it is that police brutality strengthens protesters' resolve and particularly that of militant, street battle-hardened soccer...

Almost a week of countrywide protests in Turkey have left an indelible mark on the country's political landscape: broad discontent with the policies of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's policies and increasing haughtiness bubbled to the surface; militant soccer fans thousands of whom joined the Taksim Square protests united and...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is countering foreign criticism of his pro-Assad policy and Russia's declining credibility in sections of Arab public opinion by forging ties with Islamist detractors.

In a move that serves both Putin's domestic and Russia's foreign interests, a cross section of Islamist and secular political opinion...

A decision by European soccer body UEFA to grant Gibraltar the right of membership potentially opens the door to Kurdistan to seek association with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) in a move that would acknowledge demands for increased autonomy and the possible shifting of national borders in the Middle East...

Saudi Arabia, under domestic and international pressure to grant women sporting rights, is creating separate stadium sections so that female spectators and journalists can attend soccer matches in a country that has no public physical education or sporting facilities for women.

The move announced by the recently elected head of...

Algeria is competing to be the next Arab nation to witness a popular revolt. That is assuming soccer is a barometer of rising discontent in a region experiencing a wave of mass protests that have already toppled the leaders of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen and sparked civil war in...

Soccer, alongside minority Shiite Muslims and relatives of imprisoned government critics, is emerging as a focal point of dissent in Saudi Arabia, an oil-rich kingdom that despite banning demonstrations by law is struggling to fend off the waves of change sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.

Fan pressure is...

By James M. Dorsey and Amir Khalinejad

World soccer body FIFA's newly established anti-racism committee has its work cut out for it in the Middle East and North Africa where ironically only Israel and Iran have taken some, albeit too few, steps to counter discrimination based on...

The recent raid of an Indonesian prison and summary execution of four inmates by
heavily armed Special Forces commandos has cast the spotlight on the risk involved in
failing to fully reform the country's military -- 15 years after the end
of autocratic rule.

Soccer is defeating efforts by wealthy, football-crazy Gulf states to impregnate themselves against the wave of protests that have swept the Middle East and North Africa in the past two years and sparked a brutal civil war in Syria.

Once a prince's uncontested playing ground that allowed royals to curry...

Next week's Asian Football Confederation (AFC) presidential elections designed to elect a leader to clean up two years of alleged financial mismanagement and unethical business conduct and polish the group's tarnished image are increasingly marred by doubts that real reform is on the horizon, allegations of interference in the poll...

Employment-related complaints by two international players, one of whom is barred from leaving Qatar, threaten to overshadow the 2022 World Cup organizing committee's release of a charter of worker's rights designed to fend off criticism of labor conditions in the Gulf state.

In separate interviews French-Algerian player Zahir Belounis, who...

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC), struggling to restore credibility after two scandal-riddled years involving allegations of financial mismanagement and corruption, has had a foretaste of questions and issues that are likely to be raised if Bahrain Football Association head Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa , widely viewed as a...

Egyptian authorities have expanded the ban on fans attending matches to include international as well as domestic games in a bid to prevent violence that is likely to backfire and spark renewed incidents in a country that is reeling from economic decline, widespread discontent and lack of confidence in the...

A widening schism along sectarian lines between Sunni and Shia Muslims was highlighted in two recent conferences, one in Bandar Abbas, Iran, the other in Bahrain. Both were designed to promote opposing government views of popular unrest and discontent sweeping the Middle East and North Africa and the Islamic republic's...

Candidates in next month's Asian Football Confederation (AFC) presidential election designed to appoint a successor to disgraced Qatari national Mohammed Bin Hammam are competing to project themselves as agents of change following two years of scandals in world soccer involving charges of corruption and financial mismanagement.

On the surface of...

State-owned Qatari television network Al Jazeera is exploring the acquisition of Spain's La Liga premier soccer league rights in a bid to expand its budding global sports franchise, tweak its business model in a world in which pan-Arab television is on the decline and compensate for mounting criticism of its...