Ethnography of the Lebanese Football Clubs

Abstract

In Lebanon, parliamentary elections took place in May 2018. After 9 years the ruling Sunni parties and their allies, led by Saad Hariri, were defeated by the political victory of the Shia parties Amal and Hezbollah and their allied party of the new president Michel Aoun. This change in political power sanctioned a situation who had already settled in within the first division of Lebanese men football during the season of 2017/2018. Through a study about football infrastructures, location of stadiums, structural organization of the football federation, the relation between constituencies and club affiliations to political parties and the distinguished role of women football, this article is aiming to analyse the ways in which the development in Lebanese football and politics intertwine.