and in football...

Hizbollah squad outshoots Sunnis at football, reports the Financial Times:

The movement’s Al-Ahed football team has won the Lebanese league title for the first time. They beat by a whisker two teams — supported by the powerful Sunni Hariri family — which have had a virtual lock on the trophy between them.

In Lebanon, football is war, hence a ban on match attendance for the public since the political troubles started in 2005.

“It was hell inside the stadiums,” said Lelia Mezher, a journalist who has researched the sectarian and political divisions in football.

On Thursday night, things stayed calm in Beirut as Al-Ahed beat a team from the southern city of Tyre 2-1 and Nejmeh and Al-Ansar, the two pro-Hariri teams, drew. Had either of the pro-government teams won, it would have clinched the title.

Abdo Saad, an analyst who is a former director of Al-Ahed, was ecstatic at the win. “Hizbollah only has the Miss Lebanon title left to win,” he quipped.