The club, which plays in the fourth division of the national league, was due to face the third-placed El Battan. It would not have been an easy game but Ghardimaou FC’s president, Jamil Meftahi, believes his players could have won.
The match did not take place. The club has all but ceased to exist after more than 30 of its players left the country, trying, like thousands of their compatriots, to reach Europe.
Sitting in a town centre cafe, Meftahi, an ex-player himself, scrolls through a four-page document listing the names of his former squad.
“In the last five years, we have lost 65 players,” he said. “Thirty-one since the last season and 14 since the start of the new year.” In March, he took the difficult but unavoidable decision to stop playing.
In 2022 alone, about 15,500 Tunisians reached the Italian coast, according to an advocacy group, Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES). The exodus has been blamed by human rights groups on the North African country’s high unemployment, rising inflation, financial stress and political instability.
Denne historien er fra May 19, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Denne historien er fra May 19, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Finn family murals
The optimism that runs through Finnish artist Tove Jansson's Moomin stories also appears in her public works, now on show in a Helsinki exhibition
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Trudeau faces 'iceberg revolt'as calls grow for PM to quit
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Lost Maya city revealed through laser mapping
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'A civil war' Gangs step up assault on capital
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