LABANESE SPORTS SCENARIO

Labanese Sports scenario



Labanese Sports scenario

Introduction

Lebanon is a unique country. Its small size, numerous communities, geographical context, history of conflicts and foreign invasions contributes in making this research a unique study in the field of humanities and social sciences. The study of such a case gets even more complex when it comes to the evaluation of the position of sport in this society; especially since the Lebanese Government has never considered sport and the betterment of sport among its priorities. Lebanese sport reflects all the different parameters of the Lebanese scene: economic difficulties, administrative problems, religious and political tension. The situation of sport in this country is rendered even more complicated by the fact that the budget granted to sport is relatively very small; a fact that is not only detailed but is proven to have direct effects on the low position that Lebanon has in the different international sport rankings. Academically, research on this field is also still very limited and the very few works done in this domain are more descriptive than analytic.

Lebanese Sports Structure

The government, represented by the Education Ministry and the General Direction of Youth and Sports (before becoming the Ministry of Youth and Sports in February 2000). Its role is to give official permit to the clubs, the federations and the Olympic Committee(El Khazen 2009); it also has the power to dissolve them. The government has the charge of setting up the sport policy, budget and has the role of supervising sport at a national scale. Through the Ministry of Education, it organises and manages school sport.

The Lebanese Olympic Committee, which represents all the national federations and is responsible for the participation of Lebanon in the regional and Olympic Games.

The national federations, the members of which are elected by the clubs of their respective sports; their task is to develop their sports at the different levels (elite level and mass participation including grass-root competition and recreational sport) and to prepare a team that will represent Lebanon in the international competitions organised by the international federations of their sports.

The University Sport Federation that has the role of organising the National University Championships and preparing for the World University Games.

- Sport has an important role in the Army where it is considered to be an important moral and physical activity. The Army has produced many Lebanese champions in athletics, skiing and horse-riding.

The last category is what we call the sports for all. There is not any official structure for these activities (fitness, jogging, recreational walking….) but they are mentioned because they are practised by 40% of the population. - A structure for corporate (private and public companies) and local communities sport has not existed yet in Lebanon.

If the nature of the relations between the different sport bodies has been explained by Joseph Sacre in 1990, it took more than ten years before the Lebanese Government took the initiative of defining the functioning of the Lebanese sport ...