American soccer star plays for Palestine

Palestine's soccer team plays Afghanistan in a World Cup qualifying match Omar Jarun, one of Palestine's defenders, is an American-Arab who was brought up in Georgia He is visiting his ancestral homeland for the first time Palestine's national team is playing in the World Cup qualifiers for the first time

(CNN) -- At six foot five, with his shock of blonde hair shaved into a fat Mohawk and talking in a languid Georgian drawl, Omar Jarun looks like he was once part of an all-conquering college basketball team.

But the 26-year-old American doesn't play basketball. Or at least not well. "I played recreational basketball for one season," he told CNN.

"People told me I should try it because of my height. But I wasn't any good at it."

Instead life had a different path for Jarun, one that would take him far from his native Peachtree City, Georgia.

On Sunday he will line up as a defender for the Palestinian national soccer team as they take on Afghanistan in a match that, just one year on from the World Cup final in South Africa, represents one of the first steps towards qualification for the next tournament in Brazil in 2014.

Besides being Palestine's first World Cup match on home soil, Sunday's encounter will have extra significance for Jarun. It will be the first time he has ever set foot in the West Bank and he plans to visit his ancestral town of Tulkarem.

His team traveled for 24 hours to be able to play their first match against Afghanistan. The game was moved from Kabul to the tiny aluminum smelting town of Tursunzade in southern Tajikistan -- a few miles from the Uzbek and Afghan border -- for fear of violence in Afghanistan.

Palestine won 2-0 and now have a good chance of qualifying for the second round where they would play Thailand.

The return match, to be held Sunday in Ramallah, will also be a landmark: Palestine's first ever World Cup match on home soil.

"My dad taught me to play the game. He would always take me and my brother out and we would always play around the back yard," Jarun says.

"I kicked football in high school, and I was actually pretty good at it. They wanted me to pursue it in college but I didn't really want to. I wanted to play with a team, I really wanted to play soccer."

Jarun's remarkable story began in Kuwait. Along with his sister, his American mother and Palestinian father, he fled the country in 1990 when Saddam Hussein's forces invaded the kingdom and sparked the first Gulf War.

"I remember bombs going off. Missiles shooting off near the apartment. I remember grabbing my bear, me and my sister running to my dad's bedroom and saying: 'What's going on?'" he recalled.

"The next morning my dad would come in shaking from the bombs going off. Because we are American, my mom managed to get the entire family in to the U.S. We left everything behind. My parents had nothing."

Growing up, Jarun soon discovered his love for soccer, playing for AFC Lightning, the same youth team that nurtured U.S. internationals Clint Mathis and Ricardo Clark.

His Arab heritage was seldom an issue, he says, but he noticed a change after 9/11. "By looking at me, I look like a white boy," he laughed. "You don't get judged immediately like my father does. Like an Arab. He gets judged right away. But you look at me and you don't think I'm Arab.

"Before 9/11 there were no problems, really. I had always established myself as an American from the Middle East. After 9/11 it was very difficult. My dad would tell me: 'Be careful what you say.' I would get double, tripled-checked at the airport. You know it's for safety for the country, so I don't have many complaints about it."

After stints playing for the Atlanta Silverbacks, Vancouver Whitecaps and then in the Polish league, Jarun returned to the U.S. and joined F.C. Tampa Bay in America's second tier league. But by now he had become an international footballer.

A scout from the Palestinian Football Federation discovered him while on a tour looking for professional players from the Palestinian diaspora that might qualify to play for the national team.

"At the time, when I thought of the national team I thought I could play for the U.S. national team at some point but I never really got the opportunity, so I took this one. I really had no idea I'd be in the Palestinian national team," he said.

"I knew it wasn't going to be the best set-up, I knew it wouldn't be particularly professional. But I could do my part. I didn't know what I could do for the Palestinian people apart from play football. So when they told me I could play for the Palestinian national team I said yes."

Many will be surprised that Palestine even has a national team. In 1998 FIFA, world football's governing body, recognized Palestine, making it one of the few international bodies to place it alongside other nation states.

But following the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, and the imposition of restrictions for residents of the West Bank by the Israelis, the local league was cancelled and national team players were prevented from traveling abroad to fulfil their fixtures.

When qualification for the 2006 World Cup began, so many players were prevented from leaving Gaza and the West Bank that only nine could start against Uzbekistan in a match in Doha, Qatar.

Today the team is a patchwork of bureaucracy. They fly on seven different sets of papers that make moving through every border, be it Jordanian, Israeli or Tajik, a tough task.

One, Roberto Bishara, plays for Palestino in the Chilean first division, a team set up by Palestinian immigrants. Three others are Israeli Arabs who have played in Israel's first division while most of the rest play in Jordan or for teams in the newly professional West Bank Premier League.

The coach, Mousa Bezaz and his assistant are French Algerian; eight players and the goalkeeper coach are from Gaza, which is controlled by the militant Palestinian movement Hamas and in many ways cut off from the outside world. Others have an East Jerusalem ID, a separate identity reserved for those Palestinians who live in the divided city or have family there.

Gaza-born players who now play in the West Bank have recently been refused re-entry when trying to come home via Jordan. Arguably the team's best player, defender Abdel Latif Bahdari, was repeatedly refused permission to leave Gaza through Egypt due to a ban on visas for men aged between 18 and 40. By the time he finally got out it was too late for him to make the team.

Jarun recalls first meeting his teammates. "Their first impressions were: 'Who the hell is this guy? How the hell is this guy Palestinian?' But they welcomed me in like I was one of the brothers. It wasn't like I was an outsider. No one was judging each other.

"They could tell I had good intentions for the team. Being an American I can explain to people in America what was going on in their county."

Jarun believes victory on Sunday will do far more than send Palestine into the next round.

"I think the match is huge man. Sport brings countries together and I don't know a better way for the world to know about Palestine apart from this soccer team," he explained.

"Coming from outside, I feel that this is such a big step for this country. We can show that the Palestinians are normal people."

CNN

Libyan soccer stars join rebels in blow to Gaddafi (Reuters)

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Four members of Libya's national soccer team and 13 other football figures have defected to rebels in a blow to Muammar Gaddafi's government, the rebel authority in eastern Libya said on Saturday.

Gaddafi has faced a string of defections by officers and diplomats but has resisted efforts by rebels backed by a NATO bombing campaign to dislodge him after four decades in power.

Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice chairman of the rebel council, said the footballers had been in touch with the insurgent leadership in Benghazi and were staying in neighbouring Tunisia.

"It's a direct reflection of opinions and feelings of all people across Libya. These 17 members were on their way to Mali when they declared their defection," he said.

"This is not just symbolic but it's also very important. It (shows) that whenever a person is able to set themselves free and announce their defection, they do so. There are many of those who are not able to do that."

National goalkeeper Juma Gtat and Adel bin Issa, the coach of Tripoli's top club al-Ahly, announced the defections in the rebel-held Nafusa Mountains in western Libya, the BBC reported.

"I am telling Colonel Gaddafi to leave us alone and allow us to create a free Libya," it quoted Gtat as saying at a hotel in the town of Jadu. "In fact I wish he would leave this life altogether."

Bin Issa told the BBC he had chosen to come to the Western Mountains "to send a message that Libya should be unified and free," adding: "I hope to wake up one morning to find that Gaddafi is no longer there."

(Reporting by Maria Golovnina in Benghazi and Alistair Lyon in London)

Yahoo! News

Sponsors: FIFA scandal hurting soccer

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has been widely criticized for failing to address questions about corruption at a press conference.NEW: Sponsors of international football express concern about a top-level ethics scandalFIFA president Sepp Blatter insists there is no crisis in world football's governing bodyThe FA says the election should be delayed after Blatter's only challenger is suspendedFIFA chooses who hosts the World Cup every four years

(CNN) -- Sponsors of international soccer including Visa, Coca-Cola and Adidas have warned that an ethics scandal at the highest levels of the sport is hurting the sport and needs to be fixed.

"The current situation is clearly not good for the game," a Visa spokesman told CNN Tuesday, echoing comments from other companies that pay to have their logos at the World Cup and other major soccer events. The Visa spokesman declined to be named.

"The negative tenor of the public debate around FIFA at the moment is neither good for football nor for FIFA," Adidas chief communications officer Jan Runau told CNN Tuesday.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter held an extraordinary press conference amid the scandal Monday night, insisting the organization was not in crisis after two top officials were suspended amid ethics concerns.

Never mind Saint Sepp, the system is to blame

One of the officials, Mohamed Bin Hammam, was the only person running against Blatter for the presidency in an election scheduled for Wednesday. FIFA says the vote will go ahead on schedule, with Blatter as the only candidate.

The powerful English Football Association called on FIFA Tuesday to delay the vote.

"This has been a very damaging time for the reputation of FIFA and therefore the whole of football," FA president David Bernstein said.

The Scottish Football Association echoed the call.

"The events of the last two days, in particular, have made any election unworkable," SFA head Stewart Reagan said in a statement.

Sponsor Emirates airlines said it was "disappointed" by the "issues around the administration" of FIFA, and Coca-Cola said Monday that the ethics allegations were "distressing and bad for the sport."

The concerns come as Blatter shrugged off allegations of corruption within FIFA Monday and said he would press ahead with his bid to be re-elected as president for the fourth time.

Bin Hammam of Qatar was suspended by the FIFA ethics committee Sunday, along with fellow leading official Jack Warner.

"We are not in a crisis, we are only in some difficulties and these can be solved inside our family," Blatter told a press conference Monday where he was continually pressed on both his own position and wider allegations of wrongdoing within FIFA.

"FIFA is strong enough to deal with our own problems," he asserted when asked if he had considered postponing Wednesday's vote by the 208-member FIFA Congress.

FIFA is the body that decides where soccer's quadrennial World Cup will be held, among other responsibilities.

Blatter ruled out a new vote on the venue for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar after a suggestion that it had won unfairly.

"There is no issue for the World Cup in 2022," the 75-year-old Swiss said.

"I believe that the decision taken for the World Cup in 2022 was done exactly in the same pattern and in the same way as the 2018 tournament."

Bin Hamman, who led the Qatar bid, said earlier Monday that he would appeal his suspension.

"I am punished before I am found guilty," Bin Hammam said in a statement, saying he would "not accept" the decision.

Blatter, who was cleared by the ethics committee, did admit that the whole affair had affected FIFA's reputation.

"What has happened in the last few days and week -- it has done great damage to the image of FIFA," he said.

The press conference was conducted in an acrimonious atmosphere as frustrated journalists shouted out questions.

"We're not in a bazaar here, we are in an important congress," retorted Blatter at one point.

It rounded off an extraordinary day of accusation and counter accusation, with CONCACAF chief Warner the focal point.

"At the end of the day, Blatter has to be stopped," Warner, whose organization covers North and Central America and the Caribbean, told gathered reporters, clearly angered by his expulsion from FIFA's executive committee.

Warner also released an e-mail to reporters which implied that FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke believed there was corruption involved in Qatar's successful bid to host the 2022 World Cup.

"He thought he could buy FIFA as they bought the World Cup," Warner claims Valcke said of Bin Hammam in the e-mail.

Qatar's football association Monday "categorically denied any wrongdoing" in connection with its bid, and said it was consulting lawyers and "urgently seeking clarification from FIFA" about the alleged Valcke comments.

Valcke, who is not accused of ethics violations and is not under any investigation, admitted sending the email, but said his comments had been taken out of context.

Warner and Bin Hammam both deny wrongdoing.

CNN's David Wilkinson, Ben Wyatt, James Montague and Aaron Akin contributed to this report.

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