“In light of the frequent pageants of solidarity with Palestinians that have been taking place in Algeria recently, the Algerian soccer association feared that Grant’s arrival to Ghana might infuriate the Algerian population.”
“You will surely find the most intense of the people in animosity toward the believers to be the Jews…” (Qur’an 5:82) In practice, this often means that Muslims are the most intense in animosity toward Jews.
“Algeria reportedly cancels soccer match against Ghana because of Israeli coach,” by Maayan Groisman, Jerusalem Post, July 5, 2016:
The warm relations between Algeria and the Palestinian people which are based on a shared narrative of struggle against Western colonialism are now reportedly pushing the Algerians to carry out anti-Israel moves.
According to the Algerian media, a friendly soccer match that was scheduled to take place in Algeria in September between the local national team and Ghana was canceled in order to prevent the arrival of Ghana’s Israeli coach, Avraham Grant, to the Arab country.
Ayman Gada, an Algerian journalist, wrote on his Facebook page on Monday: “The Algerian national team canceled the friendly match with Ghana because it refused to host Ghana’s Israeli coach, Avraham Grant.”
In light of the frequent pageants of solidarity with Palestinians that have been taking place in Algeria recently, the Algerian soccer association feared that Grant’s arrival to Ghana might infuriate the Algerian population….
Angemon says
This should not surprise people who follow European football (or soccer for you Yankees 🙂 ). There are several cases of muslim players getting “injured” and missing UEFA matches with Israeli teams. Oh, and if my memory doesn’t fail me, this is not a football/soccer exclusive phenomenon.
gravenimage says
It is also notable that Israel does not play with the groups you might expect–Asia or North Africa, which are majority-Muslim. She plays with the slightly-less-virulently-antisemitic European group.
It is probably just as well that this match was canceled. I’m not sure I’d consider Algeria a safe place for Avram Grant to go.
And this is not the first time this has happened to this coach–in 2012 when he was coach of Partizan Belgrade, Iranian team Sepahan Isfahan canceled a friendly match because he is Jewish.
And this, even though he has said: “I never mixed politics with sports, I had worked with many (Muslims) while I was in England, and I made friends with many of them”.
He’s a damned good coach and a decent individual–but Mohammedans care nothing about that.
Cynthia in California says
Why isn’t/wasn’t Algeria charged with a mandatory, forfeited LOSS? Ghana would advance to the next round *or* get the 2 points in Groups, depending on the status of the competition, and Algeria would get NOTHING.
Same for other teams that want to avoid playing against teams with Israeli coaches, assistants, or–gasp!–citizens.
ECAW says
It was only a friendly, nothing hangs on it. I wonder what would happen though if Israel and a Muslim country were to meet in the World Cup.
DFD says
Hi Folks,
Slightly off topic, but I thought I share this with you: A satirical Berlin daily opined that the Euro Football Championship is too boring, and due to the number of non-Euro players lacks actuality. Thus, they suggested new teams such as:
Blacks vs. Browns
Browns vs. Whites
Nudist Wmn vs. Burqua Wmn
Jews vs. Muslims
Christians vs. Atheists or Lions
and finally….
Merkel vs. The Germans
I apologize for their nationalistic outlook, which ignores other nationalities; normally something only you Americans are guilty of. (GRIN + 🙂 )
So, to make up for any offence caused by their omission, I nominate for the US of A:
Obama vs. The Americans
Actually, the last two are not lacking actuality.
maghan says
Jut kinda very stupid. Algeria home to such important Christian the important Christian theologist, St. Augustine was invaded and plundered by Arab invaders from the 7th century onward. Christianity was erased and the invader Arabs imposed Islam and the Arabic language. The stupid brainwashed fools don’t seem to know that they were victims of violent settler colonialism in the form of Arab military and cultural imperialism.
Instead they should praise the Jews for rolling back Arab military and cultural imperialism in lands previously lived in by Jews and other peoples.
If St. Augustine were alive he would say “play on Ghana with your Israeli coach and welcome to Numidia(now Algeria)”.
maghan says
Edit above: Algeria, home to the important Christian theologian, St Augustine, was invaded….
Mad Max says
So much hate even sports is not immune , how sad .Muslims need to appreciate they are not the only people in the world……………can’t wait until they take over America imagine no baseball , hockey or NFL , what will we do but pray all day lol .
jewdog says
So why? Did the Zionists steal the ball too?
Wellington says
Just one more example of why the ENTIRE Islamic world, athletically and in so many other areas, should be isolated as much as possible by the rest of the world. Everywhere Islam dominates it establishes a Jim Crow system based not on race but on belief. This alone should make the Islamic world a pariah, and you would think the first black President of the United States would be particularly aware of this but since the first black President of America is a complete and total effing doofus, for whatever abysmal reasons, this wretched man does not.
Add to all this Islam’s putrid anti-Semitism, as evidenced here by this article, its abysmal record on women’s rights, its inability to apologize for anything even though it has so much to apologize for (e.g., its record on black African slavery, which record far exceeds in wrong the record of the Western world’s——and the Western world’s is bad enough though, to the Western world’s credit, it has profusely apologized for this particular inhumanity to man as well as being the first civilization to recognize the wrong of slavery in general), and, arguably most of all, Islam’s antipathy to freedom in general.
So I say that a new containment policy should be put into force whereby Islam is isolated from the rest of the world because the Islamic world, treated in the aggregate, represents just about the worst angels of our nature and not our better ones. Easily so. Yes, this is how awful Islam, all of Islam, truly is.
Kelly says
For this, I wish all the rest of the world would speak up saying, “We’re Jewish too.”
Cynthia in California says
Like the Danes (I think it was) in World War II. They ALL put on a Jewish star when the Nazis required it of the Danish Jews. “We’re all Danes” was the message.
Nigel GFF says
‘Je suis Avraham’.
UEFA and FIFA (governing football bodies) should respond to these ‘curved balls’ by banning, not just points reduction (they don’t do either).
JP says
Inbred mental retards. Really they’re insane. 1500 years of first cousin marriage has truly been a shining light hasn’t it?
Oh and the Danes never did that. It’s an urban legend that the Danish king wore a star. LOL never happened. The mainland of Denmark has gone back and forth between Denmark and Germany forever. There are a lot of Germans in Denmark and Danes in Northern Germany. Strong ties and affection. Most Danes in fact supported the Nazis. Still do. I can tell you that as a Jewish female exchange student to Denmark. My family was forced to take me. My host father’s family was German and he didn’t want me. He wanted a “real” American. Not a Jew. Told me that to my face. My host brother Claus told me one day he had been watching me and I was “normal” He was quite surprised he said. I won’t tell you what he had expected. Disgusting. Thus I watch Scandinavia fall with more than a bit of glee.
Kelly says
I’m sorry that happened to you JP. Sounds like your host family learned better, and I bet others did as well.
A lot of the misplaced sympathy of the Left is about not wanting any sort of repeat of what happened to the Jewish people last century. Trouble is there’s a lack of both awareness and discretion (accurate judgment).
maghan says
But the Jews were in Europe since Roman times. The culture and belief systems of the present-day invader Arabs and Muslims are just alien to how the people of Europe think and behave. Leftist thinking on this issue is just totally idiotic.
Kelly says
I agree. Especially as we can already see (some of) the fruits of this thinking.
Eric says
@JP
“Oh and the Danes never did that. It’s an urban legend that the Danish king wore a star. LOL never happened. ”
You’re right there.
Buut….
“The mainland of Denmark has gone back and forth between Denmark and Germany forever.” Then it wouldn’t be the mainland of Denmark now would it? If anything the fact that the German-Danish border is as North as it is is a rather recent (and violent) development, since not only was Jutland firmly Danish for centuries but it used to have it.
” There are a lot of Germans in Denmark and Danes in Northern Germany. Strong ties and affection. Most Danes in fact supported the Nazis.”
Ehhhhhhh……. no. Not really.
Regarding the lot of Germans in Denmark and Danes in Northern Germany, it would be worth pointing out just how that happened. Namely: Denmark faced two major and savage wars in the middle of the 19th century in which it was attacked by Prussia and the Austrian Habsburgs, supposedly on behalf of what was basically pro-Absolutist ethnic German powerbrokers in Schleswig-Holstein who basically served like the “Palestinians” in the Jihadist attacks on Israel. “O Noes please save us from the evolving constitutional democracy RaceKin!”
Denmark managed to win the first one in 1848, but then was defeated in 1864 (after engaging in a retreat that made Valley Forge look like a picnic and several brave but ill fated last stands that wound up with the Germans occupying all of Jutland). Thousands upon thousands of people died, and yet more were maimed, imprisoned, or forcibly driven out of their houses in what was a pretty deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing and cultural supremacist.
Part of the reason I know that is because one of the things I’ve been doing has been caretaking for an ancient game on Victorian Warfare, which includes several scenarios and one campaign covering those wars.
And that is before we get into the fact that in WWI the Imperial government made a point of conscripting from the Danes left South of the border and tossing them into the meatgrinders of the war while attacking neutral Danish merchant shipping (which is still such a bitter point that the Danes pointedly refused several joint commemorations). And this is before we get into the fact that 1940 was an armed invasion that both sides tried to pretend was not so even when it involved ignoring the dead.
Or how things like the evacuation of more or less the entire Jewish population could not have happened with overwhelming support for the Nazis.
I don’t mean to claim that Denmark was perfect. It was absolutely not, and its’ refusal to resist the Nazis more strongly when they invaded- which might have saved Zealand and Norway from conquest- was a grave dereliction of duty. Even if it becomes vaguely more understandable when you realize the wounds caused by the last time Denmark went full conventional war against a German invasion (which were much rawer at the time), that does not excuse it.
But while trying to lie down and be a floormat so that the Reich would kill OTHER people than you is a great sin, it’s a different kind of sin from the “throwing the doors open and rah-rahing” kind that groups like the IRA or Indonesian radicals did. For one it’s not the product of happy great funtime feelings, it’s the result of being one of the first and most repeated to feel the jackboot stomping of two Reichs.
My condolences for your experience though.
More Ham Ed says
“Grant’s arrival to Ghana might infuriate the Algerian population…”
The not-so-tiny Majority of extreme unholy ko ‘ran followers.
Paul Yarden says
First some background. The Israel Football Association was founded in 1928 and became a full member of FIFA a year later, competing in the 1934 & 1938 FIFA World Cups as Palestine/Eretz Yisrael playing Egypt & Greece respectively.
After Independence, Israel was a founding member of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and were Asian Champions at both club & international levels, qualifying for the FIFA World Cup Finals in Mexico 1970.
Shortly afterwards, the Arab & Islamic states conspired to evict Israel from the AFC and Israel spent the next two decades unaffiliated with any Continental association, usually playing their World Cup qualification matches against teams from Oceania (Australia, New Zealand etc).
In 1992, Israel was admitted to the European association (UEFA) and has played club & international football against European teams ever since.
Algeria’s refusal to play against Ghana in a friendly international because Avram Grant is Ghana’s coach (and has been for two years) is a blatant violation of every rule FIFA holds dear.
It is imperative that this abhorrent behaviour is duly punished by football’s governing bodies FIFA & CAF (Confederation of African Football) as there can be no room for Racism or anti-Semitism in the beautiful game.
خَليفة says
The question is why would Muslims want to play a game in the first place, let alone a game created by the kuffar? Soccer/Football as it is know today was created by the kuffar. Pagan Chinnesse played a very similar game 2300 years ago. Again, why would Muslims want to play a kuffar game?
citycat says
Islam is war.
Football would be under the jihad label like everything.
They don’t want to get beat by a team that has a Jew coach. Not good for the war glamour.
Bill says
Ghana will probably fire the coach just to end the controversy.
Nigel GFF says
Bill, if Ghana had any balls (ho, ho, ho) they’d hire more Jews (Israelis).
Hwilsongoon says
Why hasn’t FIFA denounced this blatant case of racism?
Before each World Cup game FIFA made the teams captain’s read an anti racism statement out.
Yet Algeria is given a free pass?
Heavy fines and a ban of all international games should be the punishment until Algeria apologizes and denounces racism and anti semitism.
mortimer says
Why is this man not suspended?