SME – Written by: Muhammad Al-Joker
There is hardly a country in the Gulf without athletes having a political and legislative presence, raising the banner of sports, as a number of sports leaders have held political and legislative positions, and we in the Emirates have a clear experience in the continuation of His Excellency Saqr Ghobash as President of the Federal National Council by acclamation, and he has previously held many positions. Sports positions. He was Vice President of the Football Association for several terms, and I will never forget his standing with me, as I had the honor of presenting him to my documentary book about Emirati football during the country’s fifties two years ago, entitled “A Homeland of Gold,” from beginnings to achievements. In the State of Kuwait, Ahmed Al-Saadoun, Speaker of the Kuwaiti National Assembly, took over. , Presidency of the Football Association, in addition to multiple positions in the field of the game, and he began practicing sports administrative work in the fifties of the last century as secretary of the Al-Nahda Club before the closure of the sports clubs. We also find Marzouq Al-Ghanim, who headed the Kuwait Club and promoted it to become a competing club for all championships. And I do not forget, when I was media supervisor for the Prince Faisal bin Fahd Arab Club Championship in Cairo in 2000, the signing of a twinning agreement between the Iraqi Police Club and its Kuwaiti counterpart, the Kuwaiti Club. The twinning bore fruit, as Raad Hamoudi, the famous Iraqi goalkeeper and current president of the Olympic Committee, signed on the Iraqi side. His country is in a historical incident that I will not forget on a personal level because the signing was made “by” Al-Abdullah, as I was a witness to this agreement that came after the invasion, and I also witnessed during the opening ceremony of the tournament on the grounds of Cairo Stadium, a hand-to-hand peace between the presidents of the two clubs at the request of Mortada Mansour at that time, who was deputy to Dr. Kamal Darwish. He assumed his term as president of the club, the tournament organizer, who took the microphone from the “hand” of the famous Zamalek broadcaster, Kamel Al-Bitar, in the presence of the late Sheikh Issa bin Rashid Al-Khalifa, may God have mercy on him, and Prince Nawaf bin Faisal, so it was an unprecedented Arab event in the House of Arabs.
In Bahrain, Khalifa Al-Dhahrani headed the Legislative Council, which is headed today by Ahmed Al-Musallam. The two previously assumed the presidency of the Riffa and Al-Hidd clubs, and Fawzia Zainal, currently the ambassador of the Kingdom of Bahrain to the Arab Republic of Egypt and the former speaker of her country’s parliament, previously served as a member of the board of directors of the club. Riffa, and in Qatar, Ali Khalifa Al-Hitmi, the administrator of the Al-Arabi Qatari Club, assumed the presidency of the Shura Council for five years beginning in 1990. In Saudi Arabia, no sports figures reached the position of presidency of the Shura Council, while recently a number of them entered as members only, and in the Sultanate of Oman. Dr. Mahfouz Al-Mandhari, Chairman of the Supreme Organizing Committee of the Seventh Arabian Gulf Football Cup, which Muscat hosted in 1984 for the first time, assumed the position of Presidency of the State Council for a period of 16 years. They are sports leaders that we are proud of and cherish. God is behind the intention.
