Detained Bahraini Footballer Caught in Geopolitical Web

The Australian Foreign Minister, Marise Payne, is currently meeting with Thai officials in Bangkok, advocating for the release of detained Bahraini footballer Hakim al Araibi, who holds official refugee status in Australia. Al Araibi was one of 150 athletes allegedly detained in Bahrain following the Arab Spring in 2011. If not incarcerated and allegedly tortured at that time, Al Araibi would most likely be playing in his national team tonight, in its Asian Cup clash with Thailand. Football's governing body in Australia, the FFA , has called for his release before, and overnight the world governing body FIFA issued a second statement calling for Hakim's immediate return to Australia. Absent in any of the discussions has been the Asian Football Confederation whose president is Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, a member of the Bahraini royal family. Sheikh Salman is a FIFA vice president. He ran as a candidate for the presidency of the world body in 2016. At that time the player, Hakim, who was living in Australia, called for an investigation into the role the Sheikh had played in the jailing and torture of Bahraini athletes who protested his family's rule during the Arab Spring. It is this complicated geopolitical web Australia's Foreign Minister is now trying to extricate Hakim from. Author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer and host of the podcast by the same name, Dr James M Dorsey is also senior fellow at the Rajaratnam school of International Studies, Nanyang University, Singapore.