But soccer has not yet been able to regain the active status it had before IS took over Mosul because the city is still suffering from lack of services amid difficult humanitarian conditions. Mosul FC has yet to rejoin an Iraqi professional soccer league.
A number of Mosul FC team members and other players from the city met a few weeks ago with Iraqi Football Federation head Abdul Khaleq Massoud and talked to him about the need to support the city’s club. According to Huraithi, they received “positive promises” from him in this regard.
Athletes in Mosul are waiting for damaged or destroyed stadiums and sports facilities to be restored after IS used them as headquarters or as military training sites.
Mosul FC coach Mohammed Fathi told Al-Monitor, “The Iraqi government needs to save the infrastructure of the club and soccer facilities. Sports, and soccer in particular, must return to the city.”
As most of the soccer sports establishments are located in the western part of Mosul, a large proportion of them have been damaged, including the Mosul Sports Club. The damage to the half of the city located west of the Tigris River — known as the "right bank" locally — was greater than on the opposite side.
Ahmed Ghoussoub, a member of the media department at the Iraqi National Olympic Committee in Ninevah province, told Al-Monitor, “Only 40% of soccer facilities in the city of Mosul are in good enough shape to operate.”
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