In the summer of 2019, Austria Vienna was interested in signing Syrian national goalkeeper Ibrahim Alma. The club’s Facebook page received more than 6,000 comments. Many Syrians described Alma as a supporter of dictator Bashar al-Assad. And they recalled an incident in 2018: Syrian opposition members showed banners against al-Assad at a training camp for the Syrian national team in Austria. The goalkeeper Alma reacted angrily and asked the security guards to expel the demonstrators from the stadium.
Austria Vienna renounced Alma. And two clubs from Saudi Arabia are said to have withdrawn their interest in him because he appeared with representatives of the Syrian regime. Anecdotes like these are now being intensively discussed in Syria following the fall of Bashar al-Assad. “Some fans are calling for Alma to be excluded from the national team,” says Syrian-born football expert Nadim Rai, who has lived in Germany since 2015: “The process of coming to terms with the situation has also begun in sport. Everyone is wondering: Who has blood on their hands? And who was a follower?”
Ibrahim Alma has been playing for Tishreen in the Syrian port city of Latakia since 2023. The club won the championship three times during the Civil War. Many of Tishreen’s fans are Alawites, belonging to the same minority as the long-time ruling al-Assad family. Fawaz al-Assad was the honorary president of Tishreen for a long time. The dictator’s cousin liked to drive into the stadium in a convertible, accompanied by soldiers and gunfire.
There is no longer any sign of any closeness to the old Syrian elite at Tishreen. After the fall of al-Assad, the club published photos of two former players posing behind championship trophies in protective vests. Both had given up football to fight with the rebels. “Other clubs also celebrate the rebels,” says Nadim Rai, who once co-founded an ultra group in Latakia and was media coordinator for the Hutteen club. “The structures will now change fundamentally. But it will take years to come to terms with the instrumentalization in football.”
Some waved the flags of the Syrian rebels, others stood behind Bashar al-Assad
For many years, the national team was a symbol of the division in Syrian society. This became particularly clear at the 2012 West Asian Championship, a year after the start of the civil war. In the final in Kuwait, Syria defeated Iraq 1-0. Two hostile fans of the same team faced each other in the stadium. Some waved the flags of the Syrian rebels, others stood behind Bashar al-Assad.
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After the final, Syrian player Omar al-Somah took off the red national jersey and grabbed a rebel flag. He did not play for Syria for five years, but returned to the national team in 2017 for the crucial qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup. Al-Somah, who was active in Saudi Arabia at the time, even traveled to Damascus to attend a reception by al-Assad.
Was Omar al-Somah put under pressure by the government? Were his family and friends in danger? “Al-Somah is said to have used his influence to get a former teammate released from prison,” explains Nadim Rai, who gives lectures on football in the Middle East in Germany. Now, after the fall of the regime, al-Somah wrote on social media: “Long live free Syria.”
For a long time, commemoration of war victims was also forbidden in football. The situation is unclear, but several exiles estimate that more than 40 players from Syria’s top two leagues were killed during the war. Former national player Jihad Qassab was accused of constructing car bombs – which he denied. Qassab died in 2016 after torture in Saidnaya military prison.
Refugee players, officials and sports journalists established an exile network, particularly in Turkey
Biographies like these are now discussed on social media without fear of persecution. Fans remember Abdul Baset al-Sarout. He was the first well-known footballer to stand against al-Assad in 2011 and join the “Free Syrian Army”. Al-Sarout, who is said to have been close to al-Qaeda, was killed in fighting in 2019.
Refugee players, officials and sports journalists established an exile network, particularly in Turkey. From there they gathered information from Syria: about the obligation of athletes to participate in political propaganda or about the arrest of footballers. An example: Long-time Syrian national goalkeeper Mosab Balhous was arrested by government troops in 2011 because he was said to have offered refuge to rebels. There was no trace of him for almost a year; many fans thought he was dead. In 2012 he surprisingly returned to the national team.
Despite this political appropriation, the world football association Fifa let the Syrian football association do its thing. During the war, al-Assad allowed league operations to continue in the supposedly safe cities of Damascus and Latakia in order to feign some normality. At the same time, stadiums in Aleppo and Homs were used as military bases, prisons and refugee camps. Rockets were fired from the Abbasid Stadium in Damascus.
Bashar al-Assad rarely appeared in the official stands, but football nevertheless supported his agenda. Just a month ago, the Syrian national team played in a friendly against Russia in Volgograd, the country where al-Assad has since been granted asylum by his ally Vladimir Putin. In the meantime, however, the top position of Syria’s highest sports authority has been filled by an official from the former rebel stronghold of Idlib.
The association recently published the Syrian flag of the old regime, and fans were outraged by it
“Football can become a symbol of unity in Syria,” believes Nadim Rai, “but for this to happen the association needs to regain trust.” It is likely that the stadiums that were dedicated to the al-Assad family will now be given new names. It is even possible that state-owned clubs will be dissolved: for example the record champions from Damascus Al Jaish, translated: the army. And the city rival Al Shorta, the police.
The Syrian national team played its last game in front of its home crowd against Iraq in Damascus in 2010. Since then she has had to travel into exile for home games, to Qatar or the United Arab Emirates. The Asian football association AFC has just announced the game dates for next spring. The association published the Syrian flag of the old regime. Fans were outraged about this because the Syrian association now also has a new logo. No longer with two, but with three stars, the rebels’ identifying symbol.
Nadim Rai, who is documenting this development, has not slept much recently. He called friends in Syria, including football fans who marched through the streets cheering, with flags, chants and fireworks. Rai also spent hours researching social media. He came across a photo of Salim Khadra, one of his favorite players from his youth. Khadra had fled to Turkey and, like many other athletes, is now considering returning to Syria. To rebuild their country. And also their football.
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