‘There were people who robbed us of [Nejmeh], they starved it so they can take it away from us. They starved it and controlled the club through money’. These were the words of long-time club fan Sami on the transition of the club into Hariri patronage. Along with the accusation that Sami’s words imply, this section explores the changes in the post-war period within the club and within Beirut’s sports, political and economic scene – all of which necessitated a change in the club’s patronage, or the process of ‘starvation’ as Sami described it.
Contrary to popular rumours Hariri did not seek to acquire the club, but rather attended to it upon the board’s request. One of the main reasons was the inability of board members
78 The 'Hariri Aid & Relief Bureau', is part of the Hariri Foundation and is the branch of the Foundation that appears to provide ‘on-demand’ humanitarian – and at times political - assistance. After the assassination of Rafic Hariri in 2005 it was renamed: 'Martyr Rafic Hariri Assistance Office'. For details see http://www.rhf.org.lb/content/office-hariri-relief-services-0#overlay-context=content/office-hariri-relief-services-0 - Accessed 2/1/2015.
to adequately fund the club as they had done for the past decades. In a 2009 interview I conducted with former club President Omar Ghandour, six years after he left the club, he explained the economic difficulty faced by club board members which motivated the decision to appeal to Hariri for help:
‘As board members, those of us who used to be able to pay a pound now could only pay a penny. Donors who used to pay a thousand now only paid a
hundred or could not pay at all. So we only had one of two choices, we either hold on to the club although this could be its end since we no longer could cover its financial needs, or we find somebody capable of supporting it
financially. This is why we went to Sheikh Rafic Hariri, God bless his soul, and told him that we wanted his son to take charge of the club and become the club’s president. Even then, Bahaa [Hariri’s son] did not come as club president, but as a benefactor’.
The change in Ghandour’s and other board members’ economic status was not
coincidental, but indicative of the broader economic changes in the post-war period. Club donors and board members mostly belonged to the upper and upper-middle classes of Beirut society, many of them were industrialists. For most of its modern history, Lebanon’s economy has generally been dominated by its service sector - the country’s largest
employer. The 1940s and 1950s had witnessed growth in the urban industries (Gaspard 2004), which Ghandour and his family had considerable position in (Johnson 1986: 35-36).
The industry’s work force, mostly new immigrants to Beirut residing in its suburbs, quadrupled between 1953 and 1975, comprised around 20% of the country’s total population (Fawaz and Peillen 2003). The Israeli invasion of 1982, and the ensuing
departure of a defeated PLO from Lebanon, was followed by an escalation of the civil war and deterioration in financial and economic conditions in the country (Makdisi 2004). Yet the economic deterioration in this period did not affect all sectors in the same way. The negative impact of the war on the service and trade sectors precipitated a rise in the manufacturing and construction sectors’ share of the Lebanese economy (Makdisi 2004:
47). Despite overall hardship during the civil war from 1975 till 1990, those in
manufacturing, like Ghandour and other board members, were relatively less badly affected than elite members who conducted business in other sectors.
The post-war period had produced weak financial performance and limited growth.
According to renowned Lebanese economist Gaspard, this contraction was largely due to
the laissez fair policy championed by Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, and to systematic government failure ‘on all the major fronts of fiscal, monetary and structural reform policies’ (Gaspard 2004: 215). In particular, the Lebanese economic policy repeatedly failed to make use of ‘uniquely favourable circumstances’ for the growth of the industrial sector as early as the 1950s, where the laissez-faire regime ‘effectively became the alternative to, if not the opposite of, a potentially successful industrialisation strategy’ (Gaspard 2004: 140).
The economic circumstances I describe had seriously weakened the ability of board members to continue contributing to the club financially since many of them were involved in the ailing manufacturing industries. Their much reduced financial capacity was compounded, as board members active at the time indicated, by the burden of paying repeated financial penalties which were imposed on Nejmeh by the LFA - as explained in Chapter Three. Nejmeh and its board members were not only penalised, but were also often deprived of the significant revenue from ticket sales to the club’s wide fan base that they usually depended on.
Increased financial pressure came at a time when the costs of the club were also being driven up by the global trend towards professionalisation of organised sports. Against this background Nejmeh continued as one of the few clubs in the premier league not to have stable politico-sectarian patronage. According to Ghandour - and other board members active in the same period - the responsibility of the club had become too heavy for them to bear:
‘The last three to five years I was in the club I was financially exhausted. The club’s yearly budget had reached 800,000 – 900,000 USD. Its income, including advertisements was around 500,000 USD. We had to find a way to get 400-500 thousand every year, either out of our own pockets or by some sort of
begging. We became professional beggars. This is why I could not continue with the club.’
The situation Ghandour describes coincided with the appearance in Beirut of the new and very well funded Olympic Club which was funded by Taha Koleilat, a Beiruti businessman who acquired his wealth through a much discussed, and notorious bank embezzlement
case79. Koleilat had strong ties with Syrian military and intelligence officers, who at the time enjoyed significant authority in the Lebanese political scene. Some news reports rumoured that Koleilat was being supported by the Syrians as an alternative to Rafic Hariri for the leadership of the Sunni communities. The way in which Koleilat went about raising the profile of his newly acquired club is worth a closer look, despite the difficulty of validating the truth of either news reports or rumours in circulation at the time. According to
accounts by football media personnel, Koleilat acquired the licence of an existing non-functioning club and by making substantial financial investment managed to take it up to the Lebanese football club’s premier league in only one year. With Kolielat’s continued support the club won Lebanon’s championship a year later in 2003. The budget of Olympic Beirut was significantly higher than that of other clubs, and Koleilat used his financial resources to attract both players and fans, especially from Tariq Al-Jadidah, the neighbourhood he came from. As members of both Nejmeh and Ansar clubs told me, Koleilat attracted fans to his club by the many giveaways he offered them when they attended games, an indication of the capricious nature of football fandom in Lebanon.
Olympic Beirut raised the bar for other clubs with salaries that at least doubled the highest payments offered elsewhere in Lebanon. Nejmeh board members, who did not anticipate that the phenomenon of Olympic Beirut would be so short lived, felt intensified pressure to secure their club financially so that it could compete with its rivals. Koleilat, whether inspired by Hariri or determined to compete with him, actually used Hariri’s own tactics.
However, Koleilat fell into oblivion when he lost his political standing after facing
numerous charges of embezzlement and drug taking, and his demise actually strengthened Hariri’s position.