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July 9, 2025

Peace Through Sport: Jordanian athletes bring peace into the world and back home

JordanPeace Through Sport: Jordanian athletes bring peace into the world and back home

By Tareq Samara l

As the sun sets behind Amman hills, a standing ovation in a stadium filled to capacity welcomes Palestinian and Jordanian youth team jersey exchanges and smiles following a hotly debated, fiercely fought game of football. No flags were yelled in loathing, no insults – only cheers, solidarity, and faith in something bigger than the game itself. Moments like these are being witnessed in Jordan as part of an unspoken but irreversible trend: peace through sport.

From Olympic medals to street games, Jordanian athletes and sports programs are spreading — across nations, across people, and above politics. Educated in hospitality tradition, grass-roots mobilization, and royal patronage, the Kingdom is demonstrating the world and the region that sport can be a cause for pride, and peace.

Most of Jordan sport diplomacy is His Royal Highness Prince Feisal Al Hussein’s initiative, a sport lover of sport as weapon to promote peacebuilding and empower youth. As an IOC member and author of Generations For Peace, Prince Feisal has put Jordan on the global vanguard of sport for peacebuilding.

Since 2007, Generations For Peace has certified more than 250,000 youth from more than 50 countries. But it starts in Jordan, where it trains local volunteers to put into practice sport-based activities of tolerance, leadership, and nonviolence in communities of conflict or social conflict.

On the field, the Jordanian women athletes themselves are demonstrating how rich that language is. The national women’s football team, to cite but one example, is a case in point, having been not just an Asian athlete competitive football team but a sign of regional unification and gender equality.

When Jordan was awarded the 2016 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup hosting rights, it was the first Arab country to have done so. Islands of supporters and club from all over the world were invited in by the tournament and reiterated Jordan’s dedication to empowering women through sport — something that has been continued in the years since with added investment in sport in women throughout the country.

As uplifting as the Jordanian taekwondo team, whose world championships have become a point of national pride. Ahmad Abughaush’s historic Olympic gold in 2016 to secure Jordan’s first Olympic medal didn’t just put the sport center stage with the domestic market but also provided each player with a moment of shared national pride to Jordanian communities across the globe. His victory was being hailed in city wards and refugee camps.

Jordan takes in more than 1.3 million poor and unfortunate refugees with no prospects. Sport is a second lifeline — and a pitch — again.

Even in Za’atari and Azraq camps, the sporting community games have been organized by the government of Jordan in collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In them, besides offering order and psychological care to youth, they are also facilitated towards integration with Jordanians.

Each year, the capital of Jordan, Amman, welcomes the Amman International Marathon, a delight of coexistence, diversity, and endurance. Previously a local marathon, today the marathon has evolved into an international race with more than 10,000 runners — world champion to amateur level athletes, from anywhere and everywhere to Jordan.

Structured by Jordan, the run will be not only a wellbeing-booster and health-booster but doing something for local charities including youth development, education, and cancer research. Something more than a slogan, “Run for Peace” is also representative of Jordan’s general aim to utilize sport in trying to help make togetherness.

Jordanian sport diplomacy to an extent far from the playfield and the green. From bringing in foreign competition to helping Arab world sport federations or fighting for youth representation on the international board, Jordanian politicians and athletes are employing sport attempting to bridge the gaps where politics can’t.

Jordan also welcomed the West Asian Youth Games in 2023, when over 1,500 young foreign players across 12 nations came together to commemorate the Kingdom’s growing role as an international regional unifier. The hosts were no less keen to celebrate not competition but friendship, inter-cultural exchange, and mutual understanding.

Jordan’s peace through sport is not photographer’s click or front-page news. It is empowering people — and children particularly — and empowering them to become change-makers within their own lives. Maybe it is a taekwondo medal, a girls’ football match in Irbid, or a coach of adolescent refugees, but each instance of comprehension can transform minds and map the future. It is not photographer’s clicks nor front-page headlines.


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