Soccer 1, Jihadists 0

The Jerusalem Post, citing a report (PDF) by the Project for the Research of Islamist Movements (PRISM), notes that radical Islamist efforts to turn Muslims against soccer are failing miserably:

The paper, entitled "The Ball Is Not Always Round," chronicles how little clout extremist Muslim forces have in the face of soccer's popularity. At the grassroots level, women's soccer is even thriving in the face of extremists' repression in Zanzibar and Sudan.

Terdman says that soccer serves women there "as a tool by which to challenge the radical Islamists."

He also notes that opposition to the fatwa exists even on online radical Islamic forums, and cites one man's post on such a forum: "I am an extremist, but I find no problem in watching the matches. Your calls to boycott the World Cup are doomed to fail."


I can think of few things that better illustrate the totalitarian fanaticism of the jihadists then their futile struggle to purge Muslim lands of the world's most popular sport.