Scoring for the Nation: Sport and Citizenship in the Arab World

CCAS in partnership with Georgetown University’s Sports Industry Management Program is pleased to present, Scoring for the Nation: Sport and Citizenship in the Arab World. Register here. 

Representation in Arab national sport teams is a contested terrain: Some countries heavily rely on the naturalization of immigrants. For example, the Qatari men’s soccer team made headlines at the FIFA men’s World Cup 2022 to be a team with a large number of players of non-Qatari origin. Other countries such as World Cup 2022 semi-finalist Morocco heavily rely on their diasporas. Most Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are stateless and cannot represent any country. What all cases have in common is that foreign residents, who are not professional athletes, have limited opportunities for accessing naturalized citizenship, raising the question: Why are athletes treated differently than the rest of society?

Dr. Danyel Reiche, a Visiting Research Fellow at the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS), and a Visiting Associate Professor at Georgetown University Qatar (GU-Q), has led a research initiative on the FIFA World Cup 2022 at GU-Q and has published on sport and nationality issues in book chapters and academic journals such as International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, International Journal of the History of Sport, Politics in Central Europe, and The Middle East Journal.

Co-host