A Pitch For Hope: Persecuted People Group Builds Their Own Soccer Stadium In Iraq
Donations reached approximately 110 million Iraqi dinars ($84,000) raised entirely from the community. One woman donated from her monthly salary. Families gave from their household budgets.
“The community was the real backbone,” said al-Hamani, who oversees the construction. “Without their moral and financial support, we could not have taken a single step.”
To better understand why a community would build its own stadium through personal donations requires understanding what that community has survived. Yazidis count 74 official decrees, genocidal campaigns, against them across their history, committed by Ottoman rulers, neighboring tribes and militant groups who have repeatedly labeled them “devil worshippers” based on a misidentification of their sacred Peacock Angel with the figure of Satan.
The most recent began on August 3, 2014, when ISIS attacked Sinjar before dawn.
The United Nations reported that ISIS killed approximately 5,000 Yazidis and trafficked roughly 10,800 Yazidi women and girls in what the organization designated a genocide. ISIS filled over 80 mass graves throughout Sinjar, abducted women and children into sexual slavery, and deliberately destroyed property, schools, hospitals, farms, electrical networks and water sources so that Yazidis would not be able to survive in their homeland.
Sinjar was liberated in 2017, but more than 200,000 displaced Yazidis remain in cramped displacement camps. Those who have returned home lack electricity, clean water, healthcare, education and livelihood opportunities. Political disputes between the Iraqi Federal and Kurdistan Regional governments, both of which claim sovereignty over Sinjar but neither of which is willing to take responsibility for its reconstruction, have left a governance vacuum in which foreign-backed militias have gained influence.
In this context, building a stadium is not a leisure project, but a declaration.
“There is no regulation-size pitch within the entire district,” al-Hamani told Religion Unplugged. “This is almost certainly the only area in Iraq without a stadium, despite its size and despite the passion our young people, men and women both, have for football. Here, sport is the only outlet. Without a stadium, all the talent is wasted in the streets.” His goal, he says, is unambiguous: “A stadium worthy of the name and history of our city, Shingal, a breathing space for all the generations to come.”
When news of the fundraising campaign spread, civil engineer Iyas Marwan Rasho Issa, 34, a Yazidi from Sinjar working as a teaching assistant at the Northern Technical University in Mosul, immediately volunteered to design the stadium and supervise construction to completion without payment.
“I took on this mission because it serves the people of my community in Shingal,” he said. “With full openness, I work as a volunteer without receiving any financial compensation for the effort I put in alongside the work team.”
Work formally began on May 25. At the time of reporting, construction had reached approximately 40% completion across a total area of 26,250 square meters (282,000 square feet), built to international football pitch dimensions and standards.
Captain Samir Sabri, who runs the Tel Banat Sports Academy for both boys and girls on dirt pitches through personal effort alone, says the absence of government support drove the campaign.
“If this project succeeds,” he said, “it will motivate further community campaigns. We will not wait for a government that evades its responsibilities.”
For Inas Qiran, a student at the University of Mosul’s College of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, the stakes extend beyond sport.
“We have neither the facilities nor the government interest,” she added. “Young people are left to fill their time in places that may harm them more than help.”
The district mayor, Nayef Sidu, supports the initiative but has raised a legal concern: The land belongs to the Ministry of Finance, and a formal request should be submitted to the governorate for its allocation to avoid future ownership disputes.
The land issue is not abstract, as part of the Arabisation campaign under previous Iraqi governments, Yazidi lands were confiscated and given to Arabs, and Yazidis were forced to register as Arab to receive civic documents. A December 2022 Iraqi cabinet resolution approved the transfer of property title back to Yazidi residents stripped of land rights since 1975, but implementation has been slow.
In Yazidi religious tradition, communal survival is not incidental to faith; it is inseparable from it. Nine years after genocide, the foundation stone has been laid. The donations were counted. The volunteer engineer is drawing the plans. The stadium is going up.
This story was produced in collaboration with Egab.