Monday night's a great night for football! In July 1996, in a soccer game in Libya involving a team sponsored by Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's eldest son, murder and mayhem broke out after the referee made a call against Saadi Qaddafi's team. Junior's players began beating up the ruffled ref and players on the opposing team. When fans started to heckle Saadi and his team, Saadi's bodyguards responded by spraying the stands with bullets. Spectators shot back. When the cordite finally settled, the body count stacked up to as high as 50.
Not to be outdone, Saddam's eldest son and head of the Iraqi Football Federation, Uday-the Middle East's master of motivating halftime speeches-had members of the Iraqi national team tortured after Kazakhstan beat Iraq 3-1 on June 29, 1997. Uday ordered several members of the team to a secret prison at the offices of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, where the players were caned on the soles of their feet and beaten on their backs. Then they were forced to jump into a sewage tank to help the wounds go sceptic. As another punishment, they were forced to kick a concrete football around the prison yard. Needless to say there are no longer large queues of young men trying to join the Iraqi football team. Wanna feel how Iraqis (or in this case Assyrians) feel about soccer? Check out:
http://www.aina.org/aol/bulls/stars.htm
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