• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Ministry of Youth and Sport

The Ministry of Youth was used in large part as an oppressive tool under Sadadm Hussein's regime, with the Olympic Village in Baghdad used as the site of an underground prison and the location of Uday Hussein's offices. The vast majority of Ministry appointments were held by senior level Ba'ath Party members.

The Ministry did, however, provide facilities for the community at Youth Centres, which catered to adults as well as children and youths. These facilities varied, but the standard model of building included a theatre auditorium type room, usually with a stage, for dramatic productions, seminars, cinematic film showings, and for use as a community hall.Most centres provided various education programmes, from languages to computer skills, technical and scientific training courses, arts classes and children's classes of all sorts. All Youth Centres had some sort of limited sports facilities, usually a concrete or dirt football pitch area, sometimes with a basketball court or volleyball also. Youth Centres were run by a Manager appointed by the Ministry, and were funded by the Ministry according to the monthly Spending Plan and annual budget. It is understood that the facilities were not used for any commercial concerns or revenue generation.

Sport is widespread and popular throughout Iraq. Whilst association football (soccer) is the most popular sport, basketball, volleyball, handball, weight-lifting, wrestling, kick-boxing, martial arts, and track and field athletics are also strong. Sports are not male-centric either, with females participating in a wide range of sports also. The Ministry of Youth was also responsible for Sport, and did provide land and buildings to Sports Clubs (for example, on average some twenty to thirty sites per province in Basrah Province alone). Each Sports Club would field teams in many sports, and would elect its own club officials to run the club. Clubs were rated by the Ministry on an annual basis, on the basis of their participation across the various sports and the level at which they competed, as well as their administration etc. Points accumulated in the assessment determined what "degree" a Club fell in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th. Clubs received limited funding from the Ministry, based on the degree level attained the previous year. Clubs otherwise operated as private entities, generating their own revenue from ticket sales, rental of shop space on their sites, merchandise etc. However, commercial sponsorship and generation of revenue through commercial television broadcast deals was negligible and this is an area ripe for development.

Each sport is governed by a Central Federation at national level, which has representation in each Province as a Branch Federation. Federations are responsible for governing the sport, organising competition and tournaments at Provincial and National level, and for sending delegations abroad for international competition and training.The offices of these Federation representatives were generally accommodated in Ministry Buildings, usually called the "Olympic Committee Building" in each location.

Whilst it seems that Sports Clubs, in accordance with the Federation governing the relevant sport, did organise sporting competitions and run sports facilities, and that Youth Clubs did provide facilities for computer training, art, youth seminars etc, all such organisations were also used as a network and mouthpiece for the Ba'ath Party. As of mid-August 2003, the National Olympic Committee had been suspended from membership of the International Olympic Committee with the suspension to only be lifted once the IOC is satisfied that there has been regime change within sport in Iraq.

Almost all sporting and youth facilities nationwide have been damaged and/or looted extensively. In the latter stages of hostilities they were often used as sites by the fedayeen, Ba'ath Party, militia or army units and therefore were deemed a justifiable target for looters. They all require refurbishment and new equipment before activities can recommence.