To better understand the nature of the change described above, it is useful to also highlight certain elements of the club’s management which were retained unchanged. Walking through the offices of both Ghandour and Daouk, it was easy to notice that the prestigious physical spaces they occupied indicated just one of several similarities between the two men’s backgrounds. They were both successful in their careers, came from notable Beiruti
families and had a track record of engagement in the public sphere, especially in Islamic and Beiruti charities and social organisations. In fact Daouk had been a member of Nejmeh’s General Assembly back when Ghandour was President, despite him not being involved in the club’s affairs at the time. Daouk summed up the relationship between the two men:
‘I am his lawyer, I have a professional relationship with him. I’ve known him for many years as a lawyer, and the relationship was sustained. There is personal friendship too. He was also was my colleague at the ‘Islamic Centre’
and elected board member of it before I even joined. Of course, there is a relationship, this is Beirut, Daouk and Ghandour families are even related by marriage and blood.’
The idea that an affective ‘personal friendship’ between the two men truly existed is questionable. Nevertheless, Daouk’s description of Ghandour is typical of how almost all the men I spoke to discussed the relationships they had with men of similar background, even those who were in practice competitors. Daouk and Ghandour belong to Beirut’s business elite and are of the same socio-economic social class, so Daouk’s use of the term
‘friendship’ fits with the convention of reserving the term to describe personal
relationships with people of similar class. Occasionally the term describes relationships with people from a higher social class. No one described their relationships with fans as
‘friendship’ for the very reason that fans mostly belonged to a lower social class. Also of note is the fact that neither man, nor any other board member, disputed the implicit understanding that membership of the club’s board was exclusively reserved for Beirut’s bourgeoisie, and never opened up to competition, or possible membership, by the fans.
The nostalgic image portrayed by fans of Ghandour and his era is one that complements Ghandour’s own charitable self-representation, and not one that praises his willingness to share power over the club or democratise its management.
In addition to preserving class structures, both eras have in common a belief in the value and adequacy of entrepreneurial and business skills to take on a leadership role in the club.
Parallel to Ghandour’s presidency being underpinned by his and other members charitable motives, those same members also emphasised their background as businessmen, and stressed that despite not knowing much about sports management when they joined they were sure to succeed in their roles knowing that they were successful in their private
enterprise The trust in the ability of the entrepreneur to manage such a social enterprise has existed at least from the time that Ghandour joined the club in the late sixties.
Defining boundaries of belonging to the club is a dynamic process which has to take account of the influences exerted by different presidents and their boards over time. For years during the ‘Ghandour era’ Beirut’s bourgeoisie maintained control over the club.
Their control was rooted in notions of respect and charity and Nejmeh was open to a large and diverse body of fans. By contrast the ‘Hariri era’ introduced a different dynamic: a new line of exclusion was drawn based on sect and political loyalty.
Conclusion
The changes within Nejmeh club affected patrons, members, and fans. This chapter has built on the previous one to demonstrate how the change in the club’s patronage and funding source altered power relationships within the upper tier of the club’s management.
Under super-zaʿim and mega-philanthropist Hariri, Nejmeh’s management team focused on prioritising entrepreneurial and professional skills and loyalty to the club patron above all other considerations – a development which was a ‘natural’ consequence of accepting Hariri’s exclusive funding. Members of previous boards had relied on what became impossible to guarantee sources of funding, namely the donations of diverse, small-scale donors who belonged to Beirut’s bourgeoisie. Such donors were motivated by charitable sentiment and the prospect of increasing their own social capital and standing. Class-based access to the upper tier of management remains an exclusive privilege of the bourgeoisie - as it has been since at least the 1960s. Members of lower classes remain excluded from the club’s board, and to a larger extent, its General Assembly.
The above mentioned changes are not exclusive to Nejmeh, and signal among other issues the decline in power of the industrial bourgeoisie in favour of the commercial
entrepreneurs – both in Lebanon and at the regional level (Perthes 2004). The relationships that entrepreneurs forged with Hariri were instrumental to their business activities and their access to lucrative government contracts. In the next chapter I focus on a lower tier in the club’s hierarchy and examine the ways in which Nejmeh’s membership and the
leadership of fans’ groups – members of the petty bourgeoisie - were affected when the authority of Hariri was being consolidated through bureaucratic and electoral processes within the club itself and in the country’s politics more broadly.