Mohamed Fathi, coach of Mosul’s soccer club in northern Iraq, hardly recognizes the ruined soccer stadium once used by Islamic State (IS) group fighters to fire rockets and lob mortars from.
Piles of rubble lie alongside a pitch of bumpy sand. The high concrete stadium tiers surrounding it — with all of their seats torn out — look dangerously close to collapse.
“After this was destroyed, there’s no other stadiums in the city to play football,” Fathi said, waving his hand at the crumbling building. “The impact of the destruction is enough to tell you everything that happened here.”
Photo: AFP
Jihadi fighters from the Islamic State group seized Mosul in 2014, later expanding its so-called “caliphate” to over one-third of Iraq and into Syria.
In 2017, Iraqi and coalition forces forced the insurgents out in a grinding urban battle that left Mosul in ruins.
The bullet-riddled 20,000-seat Al-Idara Al-Mahalia Stadium, home to Mosul Sports Cub, was not spared, caught up in the deadly battles for control.
Two other smaller stadiums in town were also damaged.
“Sadly the central government doesn’t realize that football is what brings life back to a town, its people and its youth,” Fathi said. “So things have stayed the same.”
Mosul Sports Club was once a solid performing club that produced some of the country’s best players.
They include Hawar Mulla Mohammed, who led Iraq to their historic 2007 Asian Cup championship and who played professionally in Europe.
Decades earlier, Iraq’s national squad made their only World Cup appearance in Mexico in 1986.
Mosul’s own son, skilled midfielder Haris Mohammed, ably led his country to the rare international honor.
Founded in 1947, Mosul played 18 seasons in Iraq’s premier league before their relegation to the first division a decade ago.
With thousands of roaring fans passionately backing their team, locals dubbed it the “stadium of horrors” for visiting teams.
However, that ominous label would take on a more sinister meaning with the arrival of the militants.
“I used to follow soccer matches here, and suddenly out of nowhere convoys of IS militants decked out with guns would show up,” said Omar al-Mosuli, a resident in his 30s. “It was a frightening scene and I used to walk away quietly.”
Islamic State’s terror-ridden reign was marked by beheadings and shootings. Like so many other facets of daily life, soccer changed.
The sport disappeared as a professional pursuit and violence became established a past-time instead.
“Under the stands, IS fighters transformed the space into a massive weapons depot,” Mosuli said. “They set up launchpads inside the stadium to fire rockets during the battle to liberate the city.”
He recalled how the extremists forced people to play in long shorts that reached below their knees — and there was a strict ban on anyone donning jerseys of their favorite international teams or players.
Matches would be abruptly halted for prayer time, he said.
Amid Mosul’s disfigured landscape, its committed players still train on the stadium’s dusty pitch a couple of times a week.
There are no other suitable fields to play on.
“We are forced to train here now,” Fathi said. “The club’s president and some of the staff even pay for the equipment out of their own pocket.”
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