When the Arab World was Mobilised around the FIFA 2006 World Cup

Abstract

The paper is an exploratory investigation of the reactions of Arab broadsheets newspapers and other Arab news web sites concerning the exclusive right of the Arab Radio and Television network (ART), which is owned by a Saudi businessman Sheikh Saleh Kamel, to broadcast the FIFA 2006 World Cup to the Middle East and North Africa (ART paid US$220 million for the exclusive right to broadcast the 2006, 2010 and 2014 FIFA World Cup). In applying a thematic analysis of media contents the paper seeks to link the production of media texts around ART and the FIFA 2006 World Cup to the wider Arab societal (political, economic, cultural and historic) contexts. The aim is to uncover how the general population, the media, political parties and Arab governments responded to ART's (quasi) control of the 2006 World Cup broadcasts. This has taken place while the region is going through a period of deep socio-economic transformation, a cultural identity crisis, as well as greater internal and external pressures for political change.

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