Baghdad FC
by Simon Freeman
John Murray, $246
'Things are getting worse,' one of Simon Freeman's contacts tells him. 'The Iraqi Football Association has divided the league into four sections: one in the north, two in the middle, one in the south. They say it is for security reasons. Maybe it is the first sign that the country will break up.' Freeman wanted to write a book about football, ever since Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch. He wanted to find heroes among Iraq's footballers, players who had tried to save the game from the tyranny of Uday Hussein, Saddam Hussein's son, but 'anyone who had openly defied him was dead'. Baghdad FC is a book about sport. It's also about Iraq. Sport isn't politics, Freeman is brazenly told, and the refrain echoes through this powerful book. He had wanted to watch 'children playing on dirt pitches and dreaming of glory', but instead watches underweight juniors fight to stave off humiliation in charity tournaments. Veteran players are still too scared to talk. The Americans have put the deposed dictator's men in charge, and they decide who plays, and who doesn't.
