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Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Standing out in Iraq: Dangerous
Guardian UK has an interesting article on the dangers of playing soccer in Iraq. The story details the abduction of one mild-mannered, good-but-not-great soccer player who refused to play for a Sadr militia team:
Mr Abbas said all he did was work and play football and that he had never hurt anyone. After several days of being questioned and beaten, his captors told him he would be handed over to security in Sadr City. "I knew that meant the Mahdi army. I couldn't believe that things could get worse. I was in severe pain and just wanted to die."
There were more beatings, but his new captors seemed more interested in money than anything else. "They demanded my family pay $200,000 (£105,000) or I would be killed. I said we had nowhere near that amount, so you may as well kill me now."
Eventually, they settled on a figure of $10,000, a sum which has put his family in debt.
Before the invasion, there were plenty of stories about the torture and abuse of Iraqi soccer stars who didn't meet the expectations of their government. It's sad to see how little things have changed.
