Football and the State

In January 2010, an earthquake of catastrophic magnitude struck 25km to the west of Port-au-Prince, the capital city of Haiti. The disaster left both the city and much of the country in rubble. According to estimates, more than 3 lakh people died due to the tremors, and as many as 2.5 lakh residences and 30,000 commercial buildings were flattened. But a few months later, in September 2011, with the country’s people still steeped in poverty, and with most of its critical infrastructure still in ruins, Haiti’s national stadium, named after Sylvio Cator, its greatest sportsman, was being primed for action. The occasion: a World Cup qualifier against the US Virgin Islands. This would be Haiti’s first football match since the tragedy.

For many of us, FIFA’s football World Cup constitutes a month-long fiesta, which comes along once every four years. But, as many as 203 national teams stake a place for the final 32 that make up the quadrennial extravaganza. For countries such as Haiti, which begin their quest to qualify for the event some three years before the Finals kick off, the World Cup presents a unique opportunity: a respite to the Haitians from their daily struggles.

It is stories such as this which occupy centre stage in James Montague’s splendid new book, Thirty One Nil . Through a series of crisp essays, Montague tells us the tale of dreams being crushed, and favourites being upended. He takes us from Port-au-Prince, where Haiti, in front of a crowd that included its president Michel Joseph Martelly, defeated the Virgin Islands 6-0 in 45-degree heat, to the West Bank and Jordan, to Rwanda in Africa and Samoa in the Pacific, and beyond. The football World Cup is as close to a global event as we will ever get; the book shows us how the game transcends culture and politics, while simultaneously imprinting upon the world its own moral order.

“International football,” writes Montague, “means something… A national football team becomes the nation personified, rubbing up alongside enemies and friends.” In some regions, there is no formally recognised nation-State to speak of, yet there is a national football team. Palestine, as Montague tells us, may not be recognised by the United Nations, but it has been a member of FIFA since 1998.

Until recently, the Palestinian national team was stuck in a state of strife. Divided between Gaza and the West Bank, the Palestinians were prevented from getting their players to foreign countries by Israel and Egypt. This time, it would be different. “For the past three years,” writes Montague, “football in Palestine has undergone something of a revolution and has been used as a political vehicle by the Palestinian Authority to promote a recognised Palestinian entity abroad.” The football team would not merely represent the territory by playing the sport, but would serve to carve its national identity.

Palestine’s campaign for qualification would end in failure. They would defeat Afghanistan over two legs, but would be ousted by Thailand. Yet, that they played two matches at Al-Ramm in Jerusalem, under the Palestinian flag, is a miracle. The FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s decision to recognise Palestine, Montague says, “will arguably be the greatest legacy of his career.”

Montague also takes us to Zurich where, in the midst of a qualifier between Switzerland and Albania, Fadil Vokrri and Eroll Salihu were hatching their own political plot. Vokrri and Salihu are both ex-footballers from the former Yugoslavia. Today, they are respectively the president and secretary of the Football Federation of Kosovo. On May 6, 2008, months after declaring independence from Serbia, backed by France, the US and the UK, Kosovo applied for membership with the FIFA. But its application was rejected, purportedly on the grounds that it was not an independent State in the eyes of the international community.

Kosovo, ravaged by Slobodan Miloševic’s brutal regime, is recognised by 22 of the 27 countries within the European Union. But, with Russia, an ally of Serbia, holding veto power in the United Nations Security Council, it continues to remain outside the UN. As a result, Montague tells us, Kosovo is ineligible for membership with UEFA, European football’s governing body, even though as many as 37 of its members accept Kosovo as a nation-State.

On September 11 in Zurich, Vokrri and Salihu’s tasks were two-fold. One, to meet the FIFA president Blatter and convince him of the injustice of keeping Kosovo outside the fold of international football. And two, to have Kosovar players playing for Switzerland and Albania sign a petition pledging support for the recognition of a Kosovo national team.

Of the 22 players who would star for the two teams, at least nine were born in Kosovo or had Kosovar parents. Identifying themselves as ethnically Albanian, many Kosovars prefer playing for Albania, including the country’s captain, Lorik Cana. But some others, of the 3 lakh who fled to Switzerland during the decade-long conflict in Kosovo, have sworn allegiance to the Swiss national team. This included the country’s star player Xherdan Shaqiri who, Montague writes, was booed by the Albanians in the crowd, who consider him a traitor. But imprinted on his boots were the colours of three national flags: Albania, Switzerland and Kosovo.

It is stories such as this that serve to coalesce Montague’s work into one well worthy of a read. Thirty One Nil is written elegantly, with a sound knowledge of the geopolitics of the 25 countries that Montague has travelled to, and, ultimately, it shows us not merely why we love football, but also how the game often mirrors life itself.

(Suhrith Parthasarathy is a lawyerwriter from Chennai)

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