Palestinian sports need boost

Munther Zahran Ramallah - Sona Adeek Munther Zahran is a sports journalist from Al-Ayyam, Palestine, and a member of the International Federation of Sports Press Association. The acclaimed reporter stated: "Palestinian sports journalism has witnessed great development after Major General Jibril Rajoub was handled the presidency of Palestinian Olympic Committee and the Palestinian Football Federation". "Since that time, Palestinian newspapers and websites started to provide print space talking about various sporting events in Palestine, especially football, which launched its own league after a hiatus of more than ten years," he added. Zahran said: "Sports media miss many things in order to match what other countries have achieved, including, qualifying players capable of raising the profile of Palestinian sport. Most sport journalists did not study journalism, but most of them were administrative in a club, as a coach or a player, and began to practice this profession after they stopped practicing sport".  On the standards of the sports media in Palestine, Zahran said: "The media shouldn’t exceed the national interest, especially under the Israeli occupation, which works day and night to crush our people and our sport. Some journalists unfortunately follow this occupation and they are not aware of their practices under the pretext of democracy".  He added: "For example, how can we ask the world's countries not to come to Palestine because of the normalisation policy with Israel, unfortunately that is  what some journalists are calling for, which causes meets the desires of the occupation". On the difficulties Palestinian sport faced, Zahran said: "We have a lot of difficulties to face within our work, the most important is to work with the masses, who unfortunately do not understand the culture of winning and losing. In many cases we were exposed to insults and sometimes the tossing of chairs and bottles inside the pitch".  He added: "Perhaps the most important problem for sports media in Palestine is the lack of independence, as majority of journalists were players and administrators or even media spokesmen in clubs, and that's what makes some news biased to certain clubs". When asked about the required training, Zahran said: "From time to time we see some journalists covering national team sessions and seminars, or even covering private events, but such incidents are rare. There are no qualified journalists who can cover those events well."  He followed "the most important thing that Palestinian journalism missing is covering world events, like the European Nations Cup and the World Cup and the Champions League, and this is due to the lack of opportunities". Zahran also spoke about the Palestinian delegation at this year's London Olympics, saying: "We photographed our delegation and delivered it to different states in the world, while crowds of Palestinians amassed in Ramallah at the 'Clock Tower' to welcome them home." Zahran added: "Palestinian sports are still in their formative stage, and we need many years to get to what neighbouring states and world states have reached".  He added "but many players insisting allowed them to be crowned in world forums, such as bronze Asian beach football, and golden Asia in bodybuilding". He continued: "This is also reflected on the reality of sports journalism, which keeps pace with sports, we have an equation that the evolution of sport that will open the way for the development of sport journalism in our country".