Osama's Arsenal!

[Doughnut Boy Andy]

Channel 4 - http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/s ... er/1185847

Arsenal fan Osama bin Laden was inspired by the passion of English fans. But it didn't stop him trying to blow up David Beckham, writes Simon Kuper.

In early 1994 Osama bin Laden spent three months in London, where he visited supporters and bankers and went to four Arsenal games.

Before returning to Sudan a step ahead of being extradited to Saudi Arabia, he bought his sons gifts from the club's souvenir shop. Later he told friends he had never seen passion like that of football fans.

Bin Laden's career exemplifies the nexus between terrorism and soccer. But his love of the game didn't stop him trying to blow up David Beckham at its biggest event.
Football fundamentals

It was football that first drew Bin Laden towards religious fundamentalism. As a teenager in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, he was one of a group of boys persuaded by a Syrian gym teacher to stay after school in the afternoons, on the promise that they could play soccer.

The Syrian then educated them in a violent brand of Islam, wrote Steve Coll in the New Yorker magazine. Bin Laden, aided by his height of 6'4", later played in goal for amateur clubs in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Today three of his relatives play in the Saudi first division.

Bin Laden is one among many terrorists enchanted by soccer. Belonging to a football team is a form of male bonding not completely unlike belonging to an Islamicist terrorist cell. In both groups, young men tend to develop a sense of "us against the world".

Freaky Artikel - Vielleicht interessant fuer die Englisch-LeserInnen unter uns. Read it all.

[mr. bungle]

Belonging to a football team is a form of male bonding not completely unlike belonging to an Islamicist terrorist cell.

that's indeed quite freaky... but i suppose that at least as a barca fan one will be safe from this and even from having a certain kind of strange neighbours on the terraces... --> if you haven't read this already, take a look: Barca-Kreuz eine Provokation