Skip to main content

Eurasianet

Main Menu

  • Regions
  • Topics
  • Media
  • About
  • Search
  • Newsletter
  • русский
  • Support us
X

Caucasus

Armenia
Azerbaijan
Georgia

Central Asia

Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan

Conflict Zones

Abkhazia
Nagorno Karabakh
South Ossetia

Eastern Europe

Belarus
Moldova
Russia
The Baltics
Ukraine

Eurasian Fringe

Afghanistan
China
EU
Iran
Mongolia
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States
X

Environment

Economy

Politics

Kazakhstan's Bloody January 2022
Kyrgyzstan 2020 unrest

Security

Society

American diplomats in Central Asia
Arts and Culture
Coronavirus
Student spotlight
X

Visual Stories

Podcast
Video

Blogs

Tamada Tales
The Bug Pit

Podcasts

EurasiaChat
Expert Opinions
The Central Asianist
X
You can search using keywords to narrow down the list.
Tajikistan, Central Asia

Tajikistan provides solace to soccer junkies

The Central Asian dictatorship insists it has no cases of coronavirus. So the beautiful game must go on.

Paul Bartlett Apr 2, 2020
(Photo: FC Istiklol) (Photo: FC Istiklol)

With soccer leagues around the world grounded thanks to the novel coronavirus, action-starved fans are looking to some less well-known contests to break their boredom. This weekend eyes will be on Tajikistan, where serial champions Istiklol, from the capital Dushanbe, take on Khujand in the country’s Super Cup on April 4.

On Twitter some international aficionados are picking Tajik teams to support in the coming months.

Though COVID-19 is rampaging through Central Asia and locking down Tajikistan’s neighbors, the country insists it has no cases of the virus as yet. There are no social distancing measures in place; lavish Nowruz celebrations for the spring equinox took place at the end of March as planned. On April 1, the World Health Organization’s local representative, Galina Perfilyeva, gave Tajikistan a clean bill of health, saying that more than 700 COVID-19 tests produced no positives. She did warn, however, that people should avoid crowds. The Super Cup will be held without spectators in the stands.

Another Tajik sport, basketball, has also attracted the attention of stupefied fans as the only professional basketball league still operating amid the global shutdown.

But for now most attention is on soccer. After the Super Cup, Tajikistan’s 10-team Higher League kicks off on April 5, with fixtures for the first half of the season scheduled up to the end of May. The domestic game is dominated by Istiklol (meaning “independence” in Tajik), which has won the league eight times since 2010.

The well-connected team was founded in 2007 by Rustam Emomali, eldest son of Tajikistan’s long-serving strongman Emomali Rahmon. Rustam Emomali was club captain and its star striker before he hung up his boots in 2012 to become head of the Tajikistan Football Federation. He now juggles that gig with other roles: he is mayor of Dushanbe, a senator in Tajikistan’s upper house of parliament, and rumored to be the top contender for his father’s job.

 

Paul Bartlett is a journalist based in Almaty.

Sign up for Eurasianet's free weekly newsletter. Support Eurasianet: Help keep our journalism open to all, and influenced by none.

Related

Time running out for wrecker of Tajikistan’s internet as Rahmon loses temper
EurasiaChat: Putin's propagandists lose steam
Turkmenistan: A kick in the gas

Popular

Time running out for wrecker of Tajikistan’s internet as Rahmon loses temper
EurasiaChat: Putin's propagandists lose steam
Aigerim Toleukhanova, Alisher Khamidov
Turkmenistan: A kick in the gas
Akhal-Teke: A Turkmenistan Bulletin

Eurasianet

  • About
  • Team
  • Contribute
  • Republishing
  • Privacy Policy
  • Corrections
  • Contact
Eurasianet © 2023