Politics vs. Sports = Not Good

Tennis is not a sport that I follow. I might watch it from time to time. I love when Nadal and Roger Federer play against one another. That is always an epic matchup that lives up to its card. But this story stuck out to me. As we all know sports and politics equal a bad combination for everyone. Those two shouldn’t be mixed together. Authorities in the United Arab Emirates have denied a star Israeli female tennis player entry to the city-state of Dubai to participate in an international tournament. That star player is Shahar Peer. They are not letting her in and granting her a visa for her to enter UAE. UAE is preventing Peer from playing at the Dubai Tennis Championships because that country doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Israel. Peer says, “The only reason is just that I'm Israeli and playing for Israel and I have an Israeli passport and we're not allowed to get into Dubai, which I think is unfair for me as a tennis player,” she said.”I think they really crossed the red line because they should not involve any politics in sport.”

Tournament director Salah Tahlak told reporters: “We do not wish to politicize sports, but we have to be sensitive to recent events in the region and not alienate or put at risk the players and the many tennis fans of different nationalities that we have here in the UAE. … Public sentiment remains high in the Middle East and it is believed that Ms. Peer's presence would have antagonized our fans who have watched live television coverage of recent attacks in Gaza.”

In my opinion this is wrong and sad. I don’t follow too much on what’s going on over there, but I do have some little knowledge of what’s going. But since this has happened, some sponsors have withdrawn from the event such as The Wall Street Journal, and some sport channels won’t even televise the event because of this. If Peer doesn’t get in to play the tournament and others are able to play, her ranking will go down. She is currently ranked at 48th in the world. Also to point out, Andy Ram who is an Israeli doubles specialist will be allowed to play in the tournament in Dubai. How come he can get a visa to come, but not Peer? You know what the other tennis players should have done like The Williams sisters, Jankovic, and others? They should’ve boycotted the event. I think this is a race issue and gender issue. Andy Ram got his visa and was a player from the same location as Peer. The only difference was that he was a male as Peer is a female. It’s very sad that a person who doesn’t have any effect on what’s going in her country to be punished and penalized. Just let her in and let her do her job, which is play.