On today’s program we have another installment of our MERIP Roundtable, where MERIP’s executive director, James Ryan is joined by past and present members of our editorial committee, along with recent contributors, to discuss current events. This edition focuses on the 2026 World Cup, now in its final stages. Like most iterations of the tournament, this year’s has provided a drama-filled month both on and off the pitch. Thanks to the expanded field of participation, ten nations from the Middle East and North Africa were represented, with Morocco following its exciting 2022 performance in Qatar with another deep run. Our guests discuss what participation has meant for several countries in the region, and what their prospects might be going forward. They also touch on the colonial and diasporic dynamics that have been central to the dominance of the traditional powerhouses–including the final four teams of France, Spain, Argentina and England. And of course, there are the implications of this World Cup being hosted by the United States, along with Mexico and Canada, at a time when the United States and Israel are engaged in a disastrous war on Iran that has entangled its allies in the region as well as Lebanon and Yemen. 

Joining James Ryan for this conversation were Sabiha Allouche, a member of MERIP’s editorial committee and a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Exeter’s Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies, Paul Silverstein, the chair of MERIP’s board of directors and professor of anthropology at Reed College, and Nabil al-Tikriti, a former member of MERIP’s editorial committee, long-time contributor and professor of history at the University of Mary Washington.

Further Reading: 

Middle East Report Issue 304, Football–Politics and Passion, Fall 2022

Clive Chijioke Nwonka and Matthew Harle eds., Black Arsenal: Club, Culture, Identity (London, W&N 2025)

John McManus, Welcome to Hell? In Search of the Real Turkish Football (London, W&N 2019)

Fatou Diome, In the Belly of the Atlantic (London, Serpent’s Tail 2008)

Mickaël Correia, A People’s History of Football (London, Pluto Press 2023)

Simon Kuper, World Cup Fever: A Soccer Journey in Nine Tournaments (New York, Simon and Schuster 2026)