82 December 2021 FourFourTwo
different managers” in fewer than a dozen
games. “Fifteen new players,” he adds, “the
coaches changed... and then there’s politics.”
Benali went a bit Roy Keane-in-Sapporo in
the end, and has stopped playing for Libya.
“It was very difficult, but I felt like I had to
make a statement,” he says. “We’d be flying,
with the president and his friends in business
class while we’d be stuck in the back on an
eight-hour trip, needing to play the next day.
If you’d seen behind the scenes, you’d say
it’s a miracle these players get any results.”
A decade on, is there a lost generation?
“I’ve seen guys with crazy potential, really
good technically, who just aren’t given the
possibility,” says Benali. “It’s unfortunate.”
2021 COULD BE A TURNING POINT FOR LIBYA
At least the men get to play. A good insight
into the state of Libyan football is Freedom
Fields, a praised production by British-Libyan
filmmaker Naziha Arebi. Filmed in Tripoli in
2018, it follows a female team that endures
threats, militia battles and power cuts (they
play on, using car headlights).
Their biggest challenge is intimidation from
fundamentalists, newly emboldened by that
power vacuum. In one memorable moment,
a gun-toting guard quietly reads an infuriated
faction’s statement that women’s football
“might lead to other sports with even more
nudity, such as swimming and running”. As
the team trains, he takes action. “As you see
in the film, there are both women and men
who back the women and their team,” Arebi
tells FFT. “I love the moment when the guard
burns the condemnation letter.”
That oppression goes back way beyond the
uprising, declares the director – it’s a legacy
of “systemic institutional ideas of control”.
Indeed, Muammar Gaddafi actually opposed
spectator sports in his 1975 manifesto, The
Green Book, but Everton changed everything
- Everton and the glory of hosting the 1982
Africa Cup of Nations (at least until Libya lost
the final to Ghana on penalties).
Back in the present, several of the women’s
side have since launched a sports-based NGO,
HERA, which seems “a healthier connection
with football,” says Arebi, “than being part of
a national team that doesn’t get to play”.
In Freedom Fields, the team’s foreign tour
is cancelled by the Libyan Football Federation.
One frustrated player drives around as fans
watch the men’s national team. “I swear we
used to play in the previous regime,” she says,
before hitting the steering wheel. “Why can’t
we participate?!”
The men’s side might sympathise with her.
Did Benali’s team-mates discuss the Gaddafi
era? “They did,” he says, “but footballers were
well-looked-after under the previous regime.
Maybe some players found it easier at that
time than where it is now.”
The uprising tested Saadi Gaddafi’s loyalty.
He claimed neutrality, distancing himself from
the family and offering to negotiate. “Clearly
he had his problems in relations with his dad,”
reflects former Perugia man Di Chiara, who
contacted Saadi mid-conflict with an urgent
appeal after Libyan authorities arrested and
held Guardian journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad
without charge in 2011.
“The release of the reporter was a special
thing,” remembers Di Chiara, who was writing
for La Nazione when several journalists were
kidnapped by Gaddafi loyalists. “The English
newspaper thought of writing a letter to La
Nazione, asking me to write a letter to Saadi
Gaddafi. After two days, the journalist was
let go. I don’t know if it was down to the letter
or not. At least it contributed.”
Muammar Gaddafi and three of his eight
sons were killed in the conflict later that year.
British newspapers gleefully reported that
Muammar’s belongings included a Liverpool
mug – he wasn’t a loyal Evertonian after all.
Meanwhile, Saadi escaped to Niger but was
tried for numerous crimes, including the 2005
death of a footballer who criticised Gaddafi’s
regime. He was cleared in 2018 and finally
released this September, fleeing to Turkey.
Prison footage suggests he suffered anyway.
“I cried when I saw the video of him, tortured
by those thugs,” admits old team-mate Fresi.Ten years after the uprising, 2021 could be
significant for Libya. An interim government- backed, admittedly, by Russia and Turkey –
has restored some order. The men’s national
team can now play at home, and World Cup
qualification started well. Perhaps Ahmad
Benali touched a nerve. Domestically, things
are picking up, too.
“The league was held only four seasons out
of the past 10 due to the political situation,”
laments LibyanFootball. “This year, though,
with a different government, the situation has
improved a lot in the country – in everything.
We just hope the improvement will continue
after the government elections, not merely
for a short period.”
Those elections are due on December 24.
One intriguing name could be involved: Saif
Gaddafi, Saadi’s brother. He once studied in
London and is a keen amateur painter.
So, if you’re at a European gallery next year
and they send out a second-rate watercolour
for the final 15 minutes, you’ll know exactly
what’s happened.
SAADI WAS TRIED FOR
CRIMES InCLUDInG THE
DEATH OF A FOOTBALLER
CRITICAL OF THE REGIME
Above Saadi
sat behind bars
at a hearing in
Tripoli in 2015SAADI
GADDAFI