United Arab Emirates first gave a Visa for Ms.Peer to Play, she 's ranked 48 in the World, then denied her.

This action doesnt bode well for The Race To Dubai. Will Dubai, Qatar, Abu Dabi start denying PGA Players based on country or faith ?

I assume the recent controversy over Peer has more to do with widespread anti-Israeli sentiments (not solely confined to arab and islamic nations alone) following the recent troubles in Gaza, than in a genuine shift in attitudes by arab nations towards individuals who have a particular faith or nationality.

The UAE and Qatar are amongst the most permissive and liberal arab nations and have a long history of embracing diversity when it comes to the settlement, residency and lifestyles of those from other nations and of other religious faiths who choose to live and work there.

I don't see that any enormous problems are on the horizon for the European Tour events in the middle east following this announcement. It's an unfortunate and perhaps unwarranted reaction to recent world events but, outside of the world of tennis, it's not causing alarm and there's no reason to predict any sort of sporting apartheid for the future as far as the region is concerned. This sort of thing is not without precedent and is not entirely unexpected given the strength of feeling in some quarters regarding distinctly non-sporting issues.

The problem is, the WTA- Womens Tennis Assoc. , is talking about " remedies" .

I hope the PGA - European Tour, is is CLEAR on their position.

Here's the article I read:

http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,2...0-23216,00.html

Well said, Mat.
Keep politics out of sport is what I say. Unfortunately, sport seems to be the one tool that people use to make a political statement as it transcends all language barriers and reaches those who would otherwise be indifferent. Shame.

True enough - but in all honesty the response from the Chief Executive is pretty much the canned response any decent PR man could come up with in about twenty seconds flat.

Everyone has their own opinion on events such as these; where sportsmen and women suffer because of diplomatic issues that are entirely unconnected to their chosen occupation. Ultimately though, the fact is that sport plays second fiddle to international relations and what happens in the world can, and often does, impact heavily upon the lives and careers of sportspeople who are unfortunate enough to be affiliated to a particular nation.

Obviously, none of us are privy to the contractual details that surround the staging of the event and upon the right of the organisers to deny a particular individual her spot. Nor do I know what, if any, avenues are open to challenge the decision or to seek compensation for the player and her associates.

My own feelings, given that it's a large and lucrative tennis tournament, are that some sort of agreement will be struck behind the scenes that appropriately satisfies the Peer camp and which ensures the continuing staging of the event. For some high profile legal wrangling to take place over the issue would be unseemly and, in the eyes of many, would be inappropriate given the relative triviality of the whole situation when set aside the ongoing situation in Israel and Gaza.

Thanks Mat in UK,

I was thinking I shouldnt even bring this "Downer" topic up. Let Sport flourish ! No Boundaries !

I watched the May.Open in K L this AM, and the crowd was very into it- cheering, and players were from all over - thats great ! Golf enthusiasm has spread to all corners of the world.

I just understand why the U A E did this... when they have much to lose. And I feel bad for Shahar Peer.

that is why the race to Dubai is doomed... to many fanatics in the area for peace to keep....they try to keep that out of the eyes in the uae but the middle east is the middle east..unfortunately until people can get along this kind of stuff will pop up....

And Mr. Woods has several business efforts ongoing in the UAE. I can only surmise- if restrictions move to PGA, Mr. Woods will have non of it.

You don't see a problem if an Israeli, or a Jew, or an openly pro-Israeli golfer, is denied admission into the country for a key event. How can you have a championship in a country that is run by dictators? While liberal compared to other Muslim countries, that does not close to being a liberal democracy or an open society.

The European Tour should be ashamed of pimping themselves out to oil money.

You must have visted a different United Arab Emirates to the one I have.

Not sure which countries should be considered a dictatorship. I would say Iran & Venezuela are.

China - ChiComm, has a big problem with human rights... and China is No. 1 in golf equipement manufacturing.

Business relationships would help Moderate these countries.. that's my feeling.

***** Euro Tour Officials & Mr. Woods, dont let this happen to golf competitors ! ****

It's statements like the one above, directly lifted from the Dick Cheney school of foreign policy, that get you into trouble.

...the middle east is the middle east...' could not be more wrong. Having lived in Saudi, Qatar, Bahrain and travelled the region from Azerbaijan to Oman to Lebanon I can tell you that the individual countries and their attitudes could hardly be more diverse.

but still all prejudice

I just emailed the article to a friend whom is close to the PGA, I think he'll send it along..just to let them know.

I have sold products to the UAE, and I can say that my contacts were real nice and offered me stays in their homes. I want to go vacation in the UAE, play golf- some day.

I quess athletes will , now and then, be " colateral damage " . Let the Athletes Play !

While certainly not the horror show that Iran, or even Saudi Arabia, are, the UAE is far from a free country and to pretend otherwise is a fraud.

With respect to your "business relationships" argument, your position has some merit. Nevertheless, even business relationships must be governed by some ethical minimums. If not, we could have a repeat of the Berlin Olympic where Jewish runners were barred from competing for the USA because it would offend Hitler. (Google Marty Glickman).

Here's a more detailed account of what happened :

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/02/16/...rael-Tennis.php


Good Comment from Venus Williams.

Well, I doubt the Race to Dubai is "doomed" (good grief) ... and I partially agree with Mat (I have also traveled the ME widely, done business there, and painting that entire region with a single brush is about as incorrect as trying to say that all of Latin America is the same.

That said, I am NOT happy about what Dubai did, and think it should (and very likely will) feel some real pain and penalties from the world for its actions. It has to be kept in context, but I would not minimize this.

Sport is increasingly becoming global. (Many sports - including tennis - have been for quite some time). Sport (and IMO, business) is actually one of the KEYS to breaking down the barriers that all to often cause wars.

Dubai is unusual ... it is one of the most moderate nations in the entire middle east. Quite friendly to the western world. It has, in fact, been going out of its way to position itself as a sort of center - a conduit between the ME and the EU, US, and Asia. It aspires to be a sort of Hong Kong, or New York, or London, a banking and social center for an entire region (this does make sense - contrary to the belief of an unfortunate number of Americans that equate the ME with oil, Dubai has virtually no oil at all). Part of the goal of becoming a sort of regional nexxus is being achieved by all the building it is doing (it is trying to make itself into a high-end vacation spot for wealthy Europeans), and its sponsorship of sport.

IMO, it cannot have it both ways. If it wants to sponsor global sport, it must look solely to athletic merit - the standards set by the governing bodies of the sports - or it should NOT be given the credibility that comes from events sanctioned by world sporting bodies. The WTA is already considering removing the Dubai tournament from the 2010 schedule (they should at least do that IMO) ... but I guess I also hope that other sports see what happened here, and in the future draw a (contractual) line in the sand.

The moment any nation arbitrarily refuses a professional athelete the right to play a tournament he or she has qualified for (according to the standards set by the sport) is the moment that nation (IMO) should lose the right to host anything.

Well Said Mr.Midas.

Like you, I pray that the WTA has some guts, and holds firm - ie, cancels next year in Dubai.

Or Maybe the Players sign a " Any restrictions- we Wont Show " letter. But honestly, everybody hopes this goes away quietly.....

Nobody has reported this- TV or ESPN.....! Just a couple articles- thats it.

Another Update:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home

I am in no way condoning this particular action by Dubai, nor am I at all commenting on current Arab Israeli relations. However I feel that I have to comment on those who believe that politics should be kept out of sport. The example I will give will be cricket and the banning of the South African team from competing in international matches whilst apartheid rule was enforced. To allow sport to be kept separate from politics in this case would have been to legitimise a clearly unjust and racist government.

As also commented above, sport provides communication above language and will therefore always have political ramifications.

Not quite the same.....
Aparthied was long term deal...thank god its done-

U A E entered into agreements with:

Sponsors
Womens T Assoc.
Players

The Security excuse is lame....

I almost fell off the chair- I saw this story on Cable News today.. for 3 days it was nowhere .

Ah ... see, now that is the essence of the issue ... your example. International sporting bodies do have the right to set the standard for their sports. And one of the primary ones almost all of them set is that participating nations must privilege merit above and beyond all else. If the US (for instance) did not allow Venus Williams to compete in the US Open because she did not qualify, no problem. If she was not permitted to compete because there was some sort of national policy that required the vast majority of US qualifiers to be white ... well yeah ... international tennis associations might well forbid the US from participating in many venues. For the same reason that those same organizations should censure a nation that hosted a tournament but did not permit a qualified athelete in simply because they came from a particular nation (or belonged to a particular religion, or were a particular color, etc., etc.).

This is what happened in SA cricket. From 1970, until 1990 or so (I think) ... the ICC ... the governing body of the sport ... banned SA, because the government itself intruded into sport - and privileged one race over another (i.e., allowed a factor other than skill and merit to determine who was able to represent SA). Many international sporting bodies also did. (In fact, the IOC banned SA from the Olympics more than once).

This is very different than (in fact, diametrically opposed to) a nation refusing a visa to a qualified player. In fact, the beauty, the amazing, the universal thing about sport (which often seems to frivolous - as though it is merely "entertainment") is the fact that I do not know of a single international sporting body, in any global sport, that does not insist that it is perfomance alone - not race, creed, caste or color - that has to be the only criteria for participation.

In other words, the reason the ICC banned SA is identical to the reason the WTA is considering how to punish Dubai ... as stupid as it sounds, the purity of sporting competition ...

Please don't misunderstand me: I thought I made it pretty clear that I was not saying that this case was the same as the arpartheid cricket ban. I apologise if it seemed that way. I proposing the argument that politics does sometime determine sporting bodies policies, see my explanation below.





Thats interesting and you made some excellent points, and I agree with you, up to a point. I agree that sporting bodies principally demand that selection is on merit. I was trying to argue that politics and sport cannot be completely separated. Can you argue that the arpartheid ban would have been lifted if the cricket selection process was entirely on merit whilst the racist policies continued in other spheres of South African life? Other examples I could cite would be the English FA's refusal to play a friendly in Madrid due to the previous racist abuse, the ICC to banning the Zimbabwe cricket team and to some extant the athletics governing bodies allowance of Olympic athletes to protest about China's treatment of Tibet.

I started a thread at T.G.C.-Discuss b. Board...and fireworks... just all quick hit on both sides. A writer at TGC blog said - It was "Understood" by many, even her, that an Israeli player wouldnt be granted entry. I dont believe this. This same person says she's now fueling the fire......

Meanwhile- from ESPN News- they are playing a replay of A Rod crying for 1/2 hour ! A quick second mention of this story earlier.... but Give me a break !

Reports that CNN has had an interview with WTA Player Pees- I didnt see it.

So Mr.Midas- your saying the International Body Rules trumps the Host Country, period. Anybody got a Copy of the Euro PGA & PGA ByLaws ? !

I have to see this in writing...

it is kinda odd that Peer a citizen of a country that just slaughtered over a 1000 people, destroyed the infrastructure of Gaza to a pulp in retaliation for Hamas attacks that killed 6 people would have a citizen want to go to an Arab country to play tennis in the name of good sports. There's something odd..irrespective of whether you want to separate sports from politics. There's something wrong with this picture....I wonder if the US would give Visas freely to a tennis player from Yemen, Afghanistan immediately following 9-11. Some perspective

Tennis Channel Drops its coverage of this one event:

http://www.gototennisblog.com/2009/02/17/b...n-peer-protest/


The Tennis is scheduled to return later this month...nobody is saying if the TV coverage will return.

Would T Golf Ch. drop its coverage Race to Dubai - all being the same ?