Sport was another casualty of war in Lebanon. Fans hope they can get back on track
Despite the ceasefire, there is a complicated road back to play for athletes and teams
Former Lebanese soccer player Assile Toufaily couldn't help but cry upon hearing of an Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire.
"I'm happy. They had some sort of objective to help Gaza, they did what they did. But it's good they managed to find a way to end it," she told CBC News from Lyon, France, where she is a graduate student.
After 14 months of fighting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, the two sides have agreed to a ceasefire, effective Wednesday.
The deal calls for an initial two-month halt to fighting. It comes after more than 15,000 Lebanese were wounded and another 3,760 were killed by Israeli strikes, according to Lebanese authorities.
One of the sectors damaged by Israel's attacks is Lebanon's sports. All leagues have been on pause for the past two months, and many athletes were among those forced to flee their homes. Some even succumbed to injuries caused by Israeli strikes and raids.
Rami Abou Diab, founder of the Lebanese soccer page FA Lebanon, says Lebanese soccer is "a mini picture of the Lebanese society."
"Sometimes, we say that football is a picture of all the problems of the Lebanese society, like violence, like sectarianism," he told CBC News.
Toufaily, whose family comes from Ad-Doueir in South Lebanon, said Lebanon's sports sector was already going through a hard time due to the economic crisis, and "this attack by Israel on Lebanon was some sort of KO [knockout] to Lebanon."
Individual obstacles
Lebanese athletes face a variety of obstacles in the wake of a ceasefire, such as dealing with the loss of teammates. Toufaily knows of more than 15 Lebanese athletes who have been killed by Israel in 2024, ranging from youth athletes to senior soccer players.
Others, such as Toufaily's former teammate Celine Haidar, have been so severely injured that it's unclear whether they'll be able to return to their sport.
The 19-year-old Haidar has been in a medically induced coma since she was injured by shrapnel from an Israeli strike in mid-November. She's currently being treated for severe brain injuries, including multiple skull fractures. Toufaily says "we don't even know what the impact will be … if she wakes up."
Even if a player was lucky enough to escape death or severe injury, depending on which part of the country they're from, they might not have escaped forced displacement or property damage. Around 1.2 million Lebanese were driven from their homes by Israel's bombardment.
Some of the displaced were soccer players who come from or play for teams in regions that were targeted by Israeli strikes, according to Abou Diab.
Abou Diab, who is also a lecturer in geopolitics at Université La Sagesse in Beirut, told CBC News that seven of the Lebanese Premier League's 12 clubs are based in areas Israel recently bombed, including the South, Baalbek and Haret Hreik. These players probably missed out on training sessions due to having to flee the region.
Now that the players are returning to their homes, he said "the focus to them is to re-find their home and to work on the rebuilding and cleaning the house."
On top of that, Toufaily says Lebanon's recent economic crisis and the lack of funds for the average Lebanese footballer means outside of the elite players, the average footballer "had no income whatsoever" during the attacks.
But Abou Diab says he couldn't be prouder of the players' professionalism. While sectarianism have been a plague in Lebanese football in the past, Abou Diab says Lebanese players and fans were united and helped each other despite their political differences, such as finding homes for displaced peoples.
"I hope we can build off of this on many things. When we have a political problem, [I hope] all of us would come back to this fraternity moment, which was not artificial. It was natural," he said.
When will leagues return?
Although a ceasefire is now in place, Abou Diab says it doesn't mean Lebanon's sports leagues will be restarting anytime soon.
"When we live in Lebanon, we cannot be optimistic," he said regarding the ceasefire lasting.
"Should we start in one month and, say, give the clubs one month to train and then we come back? … And [what] if this ceasefire is not working, war is back? It's complicated to plan," he added.
Abou Diab says the issue of returning is different for each sport. Unlike Lebanon's top soccer league, clubs in Lebanon's top basketball league are based in Christian-majority parts of Beirut and Mount Lebanon.
These regions were not targeted by Israel as much, if at all, as Lebanon's Muslim-majority parts. So while the basketball league was also on pause, they were able to hold training sessions regularly, most of their players weren't displaced and it should be safe to start playing games in the teams' stadiums soon.
But in soccer, "all around the stadiums is destroyed. I mean, all the roads, all the infrastructure. So it's problematic," Abou Diab said.
Toufaily is also concerned about women's soccer's ability to recover post-ceasefire.
"Even before this war, it was slowly dying. Players were stopping their careers at 19 and 20 because it was not professional," she said. "Most of us are abroad … because you can't live in Lebanon anymore."
"At some point, there's no way you can bounce back unless there's this literal change of the whole structure of the whole government" to make sports a priority, she said.
Abou Diab predicts the men's league will restart sometime after the new year, given Lebanon will play its first 2027 Asian Cup qualifier in March. Abou Diab believes that start date will give players enough time to get into form before the qualifiers.
"But right now, the players want to come back to their villages, to Dahiya, want to spend time with their families and also to work on their houses," he said.
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