Football in the Arab world has a strange, sometimes bizarre history. Its role as a mirror for the region's changes is remarkable.

The game has always fascinated modern Arab rulers, and the more ghastly the ruler the greater the fascination.
In 2003 Al Saadi Qaddafi, son of Muammar Qaddafi, turned up in Perugia, Italy, and signed on to play for the local team.

Despite his enthusiasm (and, doubtless, his money) nothing came of his efforts. A coach described him as lacking two essential attributes for playing soocer - speed and endurance. Later the Italian authorities caught him with performance enhancing drugs in his system. Loudly protesting his innocence, young Qaddafi immediately announced an investigation into the various doctors he had consulted recently to identify the culprit. Pity the doctors.

According to the New York Times, young Al Saafi had succeeded in persuading his father to allow Libyans to play soccer, and had indeed competed for one of the league teams himself. The trouble was other players tended to let him score goals as he wished. Referees gave him special treatment, provoking angry booing from the crowds. Order was quickly restored when in return young Qaddafi's bodyguards emptied their rifles back at the displeased fans.

Then there was Uday Hussein, son of Iraq's dictator Sadaam Hussein. Uday was both president of the Iraqi National Olympic Committee and head of Iraq's national football organisation. He routinely tortured players in the Iraqi team after they lost or drew a match. The torture took various forms. According to John Burns of the New York Times, some players were strapped into a metal frame and given repeated electric shocks. Other more grievous offenders were stuffed into a sarcophagus with long nails through its lid and punctured to death.Still others were imprisoned and forced to play soccer with concrete balls. Lucky offenders were merely ordered to train all day in 130 degree heat. That most of the really good players were Shiites infuriated Uday. He forced the coach to include more Sunni players from his own home district of Tikrit, threatening to tear the coach's tongue out if he repeated his first protest against the new recruiting policy.

(The picture, above, shows a more happy, recent development: Iraqi player Alaq Abdul Zahra celebrating a goal in the 4-0 rout of Palestine last year, the first international match played in Baghdad since the US-led invasion in 2003.)

Fortunately the days of torture in Arab soccer are over, and the Qaddafi family have other things on their agenda such as forcing the Swiss Government and the US State Department to grovel. But in an uncanny way the game continues to mirror social and political developments in the Arab world.

In 2009 Prince Sultan bin Fahd, head of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation, caused a public outcry when he called in to a live TV talk show and yelled abuse at three former players and managers who were criticising the performance of the Saudi team, which had just lost 6-5 to Oman. The prince delivered an especially nasty insult to one of the panel, former player Faisal Abu Thnain, saying " If you have not been raised properly, we can raise you ourselves." The former player stunned the nation by answering back to the prince: "No, thank God, we have all been raised well and we know our limits and the repercussions of our actions." Nobody had ever stood up to a royal family member in public before this. Facebook pages were created to celebrate Abu Thnain's actions. A major newspaper even ran a cartoon making fun of the prince.

Nothing happened to Abu Thnain. The prince did not apologise, but according to the Christian Science Monitor he later commented that everyone makes mistakes and " may Allah guide us all." Thus did soccer provide the platform for a major shift in Saudi deference to its royal family.

In the UAE, soccer is a great passion among young Emiratis. On days when the national team wins young Emirati men swarm onto the streets in their cars, many bedecked with scarves in the national colours, making the roads more dangerous than ever. But behind this passion lies an appalling fact: around a quarter of Emiratis have developed diabetes as a result of massive consumption of junk food and an addiction to sedentary activity such as watching TV and playing computer games.

Now granted for most of the year the Gulf is baking hot. One would not head out for a vigorous jog or for football practice until well after dark. But the highest priority in public health policy these days is to try and reverse the trend towards obesity and diabetes. To their credit some of the senior members of the Abu Dhabi ruling family such as Crown Prince Mohamed and the younger Sheikh Tahnun are trim, fit, and devoted to exercise.

But bad habits die hard. An insider working for one of Abu Dhabi's major football clubs relates how difficult it is to keep the team members out of fast food restaurants before their matches. When on tour in the Asian Cup series overeating among players in Singapore, Malaysia, and elsewhere was the biggest challenge team officials faced.

In 2008 another Abu Dhabi royal, Sheikh Mansour, bought Manchester City football club as part of the effort to extend the brand of the emirate and to help its admirable airline Etihad raise its image. But the purchase has failed to have any beneficial effect on the young Emiratis and their increasingly slothful lifestyles. Perhaps it was never intended to do so.
Arabs are not naturally fat. In decades past the Gulf Arabs worked as pearl divers before Mikimoto destroyed the Gulf pearling industry. They were lithe and hard types. Likewise the young Bedouin lads of the inland villages and oases are still in fine shape these days. But oil and its revenues have destroyed the health of a generation or two, and it doesn't look like changing anytime soon.