REPORTER: Olivia Rousset
Today is the first soccer match played in Iraq since the war began. Soccer is back in business, along with its captain and star Laith Hussein.
LAITH HUSSEIN, IRAQ SOCCER CAPTAIN (Translation): Thank God, today I feel we have the freedom to express ourselves with soccer. We couldn’t before but we can today. I feel we are free, I feel we have freedom and we’ll give more than we’ve given in the past.
In war and peace, soccer has been an obsession here, as well as the favourite plaything of Saddam's eldest son, Uday Hussein.
LAITH HUSSEIN (Translation): These are the cups I’ve won. Here I’m with Uday shaking hands.
While Uday was well known for his sadistic impulses, some of his more bizarre fetishes were played out on his pet project - the Iraqi national soccer team. Where he took the coaching standard of tough love a little too literally.
LAITH HUSSEIN (Translation): He felt good when he punished us, he liked to punish us. You know how someone likes something…”I like to hurt you” that’s how he was.
Throughout the 1980s, Iraq's national soccer team was a success and of particular pride to the ruling family. But then the sanctions took their toll.
LAITH HUSSEIN (Translation): Because we lost at every championship and tournament people developed a loser’s complex, as the Iraqi team always used to win at internationals. He became frustrated and didn’t know how to behave. Uday thought if he jailed or beat a player it would make them stronger and more vicious and would try to do anything in order to win the game.
I am here, the captain, at this game we lost 2-0 against Bahrain, seven players went to jail and he beat some players.
The defeated players were brought here to the outskirts of Baghdad, to the infamous Radwaniya prison, now a wreck from American bombs.
LAITH HUSSEIN (Translation): They used cables for beatings, for flogging they didn’t use the electric current. For flogging… many players were beaten, but not me thank God.
Uday's sports motivation program didn't work on goalkeeper and budding artist 22-year-old Majid Abu Hier.
MAJID ADU HEIR, IRAQI GOALKEEPER (Translation): Once I went to training with my paintings, Uday saw me and asked who I was. They said I was the goalkeeper, he asked why I was late and they said I studied painting at the academy and that I’d bring my paintings with me. He told them to burn all the paintings, I had three or four paintings and they took them from me, they pulled them away like that, and burnt them in front of me. That was my first clash.
The second clash with his patron came in 1998 after a match against Korea.
MAJID ADU HEIR (Translation): It was nil all in the first half so Uday called and said “If you don’t win the second half, it’s one month in jail.” With Korea, if you score one point you’re a champ. We went into the second half all trembling and terrified, we lost 3-0, we lost out of fear.
Defeated, Majid and his team-mates were eventually driven to one of Uday's farms, where they had their heads shaved, worked 12-hour days and slept with the animals.
MAJID ADU HEIR (Translation): He wanted to bury us alive, my mother went to the Olympic Committee and said “If he’s dead give me his body to bury.”
For the first 17 days nobody knew where we were.
This photo is in jail when we first got back, they put us in jail. It’s a secret photo, this is the national team who were jailed.
Not satisfied with just punishing the team, Uday had the whole delegation escorted to his farm - including the team doctors and coaches.
MAJID ADU HEIR (Translation): Uday was in contact with the head of the delegation telling him to do this and that, on the mobile. He was jailed too. He said “The whole plane goes to jail.” If Uday could he would have jailed the other passengers as well.
They were finally released after three weeks when 20 of the 22 players contracted cholera.
MAJID ADU HEIR (Translation): The water was filthy, we drank from the creek, the food was putrid, we felt so miserable. He had cows living with us, Friesian cows from Holland. He was worried the cows might get cholera so he told them to release us as soon as possible.
Rarely have the passions of politics and sport so brutally collided than in soccer-obsessed Iraq. It was here at the National Olympic Building, the symbol of international sportsmanship and brotherhood, that Uday had his headquarters. But for Laith Hussein, it was just another prison.
LAITH HUSSEIN (Translation): Some family is staying here, look at this? But look at this all the room is red, the light, the walls…
How long would you stay here for?
LAITH HUSSEIN: Three days. We lost a match with Kazakhstan, after the game he put all the players in this room. We have only this door, all the room is red, look at this. If you stay one hour maybe you have something in the brain.
A homeless family is now squatting in this tiny prison. They smashed out windows and doors and painted one of the rooms white.
Before they renovated, there were still signs of the horrors that had gone on here.
MAN (Translation): There was a coffin here with a timber base, a steel coffin with metal spikes in its door. They’d punish a player by locking him up in it for a day or two.
ANOTHER MAN (Translation): That’s what we heard, Laith Hussein said they were punished with this. He said they were punished in this if they didn’t win. The punishment started in the red rooms.
WOMAN (Translation): Where was that man living? With monsters? By God he’s a monster!
MAJID ADU HEIR (Translation): Even now we still can’t believe it. Uday is gone and Saddam is out of power. We can’t believe it, but sadly so far, nothing has materialised, the state is in disarray, the situation is chaotic. We pray to god for the situation to settle so that sport and the passion for sport may return.
Today is the first soccer match played in Iraq since the war began. Soccer is back in business, along with its captain and star Laith Hussein.
LAITH HUSSEIN, IRAQ SOCCER CAPTAIN (Translation): Thank God, today I feel we have the freedom to express ourselves with soccer. We couldn’t before but we can today. I feel we are free, I feel we have freedom and we’ll give more than we’ve given in the past.
In war and peace, soccer has been an obsession here, as well as the favourite plaything of Saddam's eldest son, Uday Hussein.
LAITH HUSSEIN (Translation): These are the cups I’ve won. Here I’m with Uday shaking hands.
While Uday was well known for his sadistic impulses, some of his more bizarre fetishes were played out on his pet project - the Iraqi national soccer team. Where he took the coaching standard of tough love a little too literally.
LAITH HUSSEIN (Translation): He felt good when he punished us, he liked to punish us. You know how someone likes something…”I like to hurt you” that’s how he was.
Throughout the 1980s, Iraq's national soccer team was a success and of particular pride to the ruling family. But then the sanctions took their toll.
LAITH HUSSEIN (Translation): Because we lost at every championship and tournament people developed a loser’s complex, as the Iraqi team always used to win at internationals. He became frustrated and didn’t know how to behave. Uday thought if he jailed or beat a player it would make them stronger and more vicious and would try to do anything in order to win the game.
I am here, the captain, at this game we lost 2-0 against Bahrain, seven players went to jail and he beat some players.
The defeated players were brought here to the outskirts of Baghdad, to the infamous Radwaniya prison, now a wreck from American bombs.
LAITH HUSSEIN (Translation): They used cables for beatings, for flogging they didn’t use the electric current. For flogging… many players were beaten, but not me thank God.
Uday's sports motivation program didn't work on goalkeeper and budding artist 22-year-old Majid Abu Hier.
MAJID ADU HEIR, IRAQI GOALKEEPER (Translation): Once I went to training with my paintings, Uday saw me and asked who I was. They said I was the goalkeeper, he asked why I was late and they said I studied painting at the academy and that I’d bring my paintings with me. He told them to burn all the paintings, I had three or four paintings and they took them from me, they pulled them away like that, and burnt them in front of me. That was my first clash.
The second clash with his patron came in 1998 after a match against Korea.
MAJID ADU HEIR (Translation): It was nil all in the first half so Uday called and said “If you don’t win the second half, it’s one month in jail.” With Korea, if you score one point you’re a champ. We went into the second half all trembling and terrified, we lost 3-0, we lost out of fear.
Defeated, Majid and his team-mates were eventually driven to one of Uday's farms, where they had their heads shaved, worked 12-hour days and slept with the animals.
MAJID ADU HEIR (Translation): He wanted to bury us alive, my mother went to the Olympic Committee and said “If he’s dead give me his body to bury.”
For the first 17 days nobody knew where we were.
This photo is in jail when we first got back, they put us in jail. It’s a secret photo, this is the national team who were jailed.
Not satisfied with just punishing the team, Uday had the whole delegation escorted to his farm - including the team doctors and coaches.
MAJID ADU HEIR (Translation): Uday was in contact with the head of the delegation telling him to do this and that, on the mobile. He was jailed too. He said “The whole plane goes to jail.” If Uday could he would have jailed the other passengers as well.
They were finally released after three weeks when 20 of the 22 players contracted cholera.
MAJID ADU HEIR (Translation): The water was filthy, we drank from the creek, the food was putrid, we felt so miserable. He had cows living with us, Friesian cows from Holland. He was worried the cows might get cholera so he told them to release us as soon as possible.
Rarely have the passions of politics and sport so brutally collided than in soccer-obsessed Iraq. It was here at the National Olympic Building, the symbol of international sportsmanship and brotherhood, that Uday had his headquarters. But for Laith Hussein, it was just another prison.
LAITH HUSSEIN (Translation): Some family is staying here, look at this? But look at this all the room is red, the light, the walls…
How long would you stay here for?
LAITH HUSSEIN: Three days. We lost a match with Kazakhstan, after the game he put all the players in this room. We have only this door, all the room is red, look at this. If you stay one hour maybe you have something in the brain.
A homeless family is now squatting in this tiny prison. They smashed out windows and doors and painted one of the rooms white.
Before they renovated, there were still signs of the horrors that had gone on here.
MAN (Translation): There was a coffin here with a timber base, a steel coffin with metal spikes in its door. They’d punish a player by locking him up in it for a day or two.
ANOTHER MAN (Translation): That’s what we heard, Laith Hussein said they were punished with this. He said they were punished in this if they didn’t win. The punishment started in the red rooms.
WOMAN (Translation): Where was that man living? With monsters? By God he’s a monster!
MAJID ADU HEIR (Translation): Even now we still can’t believe it. Uday is gone and Saddam is out of power. We can’t believe it, but sadly so far, nothing has materialised, the state is in disarray, the situation is chaotic. We pray to god for the situation to settle so that sport and the passion for sport may return.