Political infighting within Kuwait’s ruling family is "about to take a dramatic turn with reports that the Gulf state plans to dissolve its national sports organizations in a blatant illustration of the incestuous relationship between sports and politics," according to James M. Dorsey of the HUFFINGTON POST. The expected Kuwaiti move, part of an effort to sideline Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, a member of the Gulf state’s ruling family and "one of world sports’ most powerful men," and his brother, Sheikh Talal Al-Fahad, the head of Kuwait’s National Olympic Committee, "is the latest episode in a longstanding power struggle that has played out in Kuwaiti courts and international sports." The plan reported by the country’s authoritative Al Rai newspaper "constitutes the government’s response to a decision" by the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration of Sports to uphold FIFA’s banning last year of the Kuwait FA on the grounds that a new Kuwaiti sports law "amounted to political interference." The IOC followed by FIFA and 15 other int'l sports associations "banned their Kuwaiti members on the grounds that the law compromised the autonomy of sport." The government "hopes that it can get the bans lifted by creating new sports associations while cancelling the controversial law." The new organizations would "effectively lock Sheikhs Ahmad and Talal as well as their supporters out of Kuwaiti sports" (HUFFINGTON POST, 6/18).
