James Dorsey

The Arab world's first free and fair presidential elections pose a dilemma and a wake-up call for militant Egyptian soccer fans and revolutionary youth groups as the two surviving candidates seek to win their votes in a run-off next month in which a majority of the votes are up for...

Iranian women soccer fans have set their hopes on the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to return them to the terraces after having been banned from stadiums for years to prevent them from looking at men's bodies.

The women expect the AFC's insistence that Iran adhere to the Asian soccer body's...

It took Egypt's military brass less than six months to first isolate street-battle hardened soccer fans, the country's most militant opponents of military rule and then restore their waning popularity amid mushrooming protests demanding an immediate return of the armed forces to their barracks and a transition to civilian government.

Increasingly strained relations between Iran and oil-rich Arab Gulf states spilled on to the soccer pitch this weekend with the United Arab Emirates cancelling a friendly match against the Islamic republic and recalling its ambassador in Tehran.

The move -- which occurred against the backdrop of a war of words...

Arab youth and sports ministers announced this week a boycott of sports apparel manufacturer Adidas because of its sponsorship of last month's Jerusalem marathon. The boycott comes at a time that Arab public displeasure is expanding from the West to China and Russia because of their support for the embattled...

The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) is struggling with how to penalize the Suez Canal town of Port Said's soccer team Al Masri SC for a clash six weeks ago with supporters of crowned Cairo club Al Ahly SC in which 74 fans were killed in the worst incident in Egyptian...

An effort by the Iranian government to force the resignation of recently re-elected Iranian Football Federation (IFF) president Ali Kafashian constitutes the second time in as many months that a Middle Eastern government defies world soccer body FIFA's ban on political interference in the beautiful game.

It also spotlights FIFA's...

The Egyptian Football Association (EFA), acting on instructions of the interior ministry, has cancelled the rest of this season's league matches in the wake of rioting at a match last month that killed 74 people and injured hundreds of others in a move that is apparently designed to further isolate...

Observant Muslim women's soccer players won a first victory on Saturday with the International Football Association Board's (IFAB) decision to allow the players to test specially designed headscarves for the next four months.

The proposal presented to the IFAB, the soccer body that determines the game's rules, was tabled by...

With campaigning started for the election of a new president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to succeed disgraced Qatari national Mohammed Bin Hammam, soccer officials are concerned that the candidacy of Bahrain Football Association president Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa could prove to be another embarrassment.

Sheikh Salman,...

An Egyptian parliamentary inquiry into this month's death of 74 soccer fans in the Suez Canal city of Port Said has blamed fans and lax security for the worst incident in the country's sports history. The inquiry's preliminary report also suggests without going into detail that unidentified thugs...

With alcohol becoming a domestic political issue in the Gulf state of Qatar, host of the 2022 World Cup, Qatari officials are certainly taking heart from world soccer body FIFA's battle with the non-Muslim hosts of the next two tournaments, Brazil and Russia, over the role of alcohol in the...

Saudi Arabia is building its first stadium especially designed to allow women who are currently barred from attending soccer matches because of the kingdom's strict public gender segregation to watch games.

The stadium in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah is scheduled to be completed in 2014 and will...

The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) has delayed the 16th round of Premier League soccer matches in a bid to prevent the pitch from becoming an anti-military rallying point during this week's celebrations of the eruption of protests a year ago that toppled President Hosni Mubarak.

The delay, a year after...

Qatar, with trade union leaders set for a second round of discussions with world soccer body FIFA about questionable labour conditions in the Gulf state, has vowed to ensure that contractors involved in preparations for the 2022 World Cup will adhere to international labour laws.

An official of the trade...

A ban on alcohol on Qatar's man-made The Pearl Qatar island -- coupled with the naming of a large mosque after the founder of a puritan strand of Islam and online protests against various state-owned companies -- highlights domestic opposition to some of the Gulf state's more forward looking policies...