[Beirut, Lebanon] Fouad and Sami Itani are relieved. Now that the Lebanese government has brokered an agreement between local cable providers and the company that acquired exclusivity to broadcast the event in the Middle East, the two cousins will be able to watch the Football World Cup on TV.
Standing in front of Fouad’s barbershop in Hamra, Beirut’s mainly Muslim quarter, they smile.
“We would never have agreed to pay more than a hundred dollars just to get the games on our screens,” Sami says.
Together with friends and other relatives, the two are looking forward to a month of exciting sports – as are hundreds of thousands of other Lebanese.
Until Monday, when Information Minister Ghazi Aridi announced the deal that illegal cable operators must pay the Arab Radio and Television Network (ART) the sum of $500,000, it looked as if this nation of football fanatics would have to wait for recorded versions of the matches to be broadcast only 12 hours after the final whistle had been blown. In newspaper advertisements, ART warned it would take legal action against any cable company airing the games unless it paid the substantial fees required by the network, threatening fines of more than $33,000 or three years in prison.
In the absence of laws regulating the telecommunications sector, most Lebanese get their subscriptions from illegal cable companies that operate through piracy and charge about 15,000 Lebanese pounds ($10) a month. ART, a Saudi-based network, has bought the exclusive regional rights for World Cup matches from 2002 until 2014 for $100 million.
Whereas foreigners and members of the Lebanese middle class have no problems paying for drinks in the cafes or restaurants of the posh downtown area of the Lebanese capital where the matches will be screened, many sectors of the population simply cannot afford to do that. Average monthly incomes are under $300 dollars, so the government-brokered agreement came just in time.
Even though the Lebanese national team did not qualify for the tournament taking place in Germany until July 9, the people here are crazy about the World Cup. For weeks cars have been driving around with flags of the participant teams attached to their antennas, a tremendous change from the rest of the year when nothing but the red and white Lebanese flag with the green cedar can be seen. Now, everywhere in the country, from Sidon in the south to Tripoli in the north, team flags are hanging from balconies, in front of shops and restaurants. Brazil and Germany supporters are especially strong, but fans of France, Argentina, Italy and England can also be easily spotted.
This comes as no surprise. In Brazil alone there are more than twice as many people of Lebanese origin than actually live in Lebanon, around eight million. The expatriate communities in Germany, France and Argentina also maintain strong ties with those who decided to remain in the country shattered by a bloody civil war between 1975 and 1990.
When Brazil reached the finals against Germany in the last tournament in 2002, traffic at Beirut’s Corniche stopped for hours. The spontaneous party was accompanied by drivers honking their horns amid an ocean of Brazil’s green, yellow and blue flags. Even supporters of the German team decided to join in the celebration.
Four years later the Germans’ standing is just as strong. Cab driver George, for example, is one of their supporters – not so much because of the technical skills of the host team, which, since the early Seventies, never impressed through the brilliance of their game, but through their ability to fight back.
“I don’t remember when I started supporting Germany at World Cups,” he says, leaning back in the driver’s seat of his blue Mercedes 200. “Somehow it’s just always been like this.”
A fighter for a Christian militia during the war, George, like thousands of others, took up driving through the crowded streets of the capital after serving his time as a soldier.
“I just like German quality,” he gives as one possible reason for his choice of support, his 30-year-old Mercedes being another living proof.
At a concert in Beirut the German hip-hop-band Blumentopf last November sang: “No matter what I say, the people here won’t understand me, of Germany they know nothing but Mercedes and Mehlis.”
A Time to Make Friends
In Lebanese cities such as Beirut or Tripoli, where Germans have been living for decades, the motto of the World Cup organizers takes on a new meaning, not only because the German UN-investigator Detlev Mehlis was celebrated here for his investigation into the murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. German institutions such as the Orient-Institut are well-respected throughout the country; the German cultural center Goethe-Institut already in May started showing a series of football films – a welcome warm-up for the tournament. Starting with the opening match on Friday between Germany and Costa Rica, the German expatriate community in West Beirut will be showing many matches live.
Just a few streets away Fouad and Sami are going through the tournament fixture. In the past the little barber’s shop across from St. Rita Church has been a gathering site for basketball and football fans alike; now the stage is being set for the most important sports event of the year. And Fouad leaves no doubt who will win: “Italy has the strongest team,” he says, displaying a little flag of the Squadra Azzura.
