It might be understandable, from a sports perspective, for the supporters of the national football teams of Algeria and Sudan to bear mutual enmity for each other during the qualification match for the last World Cup held in South Africa. The competition was fierce, to win a game that would earn the winning team athletic standing and a monetary reward. Moreover, the two countries, in view of the political situation inside each of them, were in need of a national cause for popular mobilization. And it was not important in any case who had started the aggression or who was responsible. In any event, this football war still has understandable explanations and motives. The mutual official campaigns, which have fulfilled their function, have ended, and matters have in the end been repaired between the two countries, as if nothing had ever happened. Yet, never has a football war between two clubs in the same country reached the extent to which things did two days ago in Jordan, and this indeed requires taking a serious look at the phenomenon, one that goes beyond the sports aspect of it. These types of incidents have happened between two clubs: Al-Wehdat, which stirs up the emotions of Jordanians of Palestinian origin, and Al-Feisali, which stirs up the emotions of Jordanians from the Eastern part of the Kingdom. It is not the first incident of its kind, as it repeats itself between their supporters at every match between the two in the Jordanian League. And at each of those games, slogans and cheers are heard that reflect the opposing feelings of the two audiences, sometimes reaching the limits of debasement and racism. Athletic and political authorities have noticed this state of affairs and have agreed on steps to prevent friction between the two groups of supporters after matches. The latest incident took place after the supporters of Al-Feisali left the stadium. In fact, Al-Wehdat administrators defended these supporters and their conduct. In spite of this, the incident happened, and about 250 people were wounded. Jordanian authorities denounced the incident, and so did those concerned in both clubs. The government also promised an investigation and that those responsible would be punished. Yet all of this does not negate the fact that the problem with this kind of incident is that it exceeds athletic matters. It in fact confirms that it is the social rift that drives it to exceed athletic matters, making sports – and in this case football, the most popular sport – the outlet for accumulated tensions, to the extent that supporting one team is sometimes equivalent to an affiliation to one socio-political stance. The issue is not restricted to Jordan, where a social rift exists between citizens of Palestinian origin and those of East Jordanian origins, as there is the same division in every country according to its own social rifts. Thus, in Lebanon for example, the issue takes on a sectarian character – that is if each sect does not have its own team with its own supporters. And in other countries, such as for instance in the Gulf, it takes on the character of a release of tension for young people who identify with this or that club. Certainly sports, in all societies, take on, through challenge and competition, the nature of a safety valve, releasing excess emotion among supporters. And it has often drifted into violence even in the most socially cohesive societies. But division there is random and does not overlap with social identity. That is why this issue in our countries becomes doubly important, in view of its overlapping with such identity, becoming an expression of the struggle of identities much more than one connected to sports. This will go on for as long as our societies suffer from the problem of social integration and from difficulties in political expression, and as long as segments of society are being dealt with on the basis of the social rift.
