Muslim man's epic tweets on football riots highlight media's biased coverage

Severe clashes have cast a shadow over Euro 2016 with Uefa threatening to disqualify Russia and England from the tournament if violence continues.

As the world witnessed the violence with several people on both sides injured, one British-Iraqi academic gained stardom on social media after posting a series of tweets about the riots in Marseille. His tweets, however, had an interesting twist.

Watching from London, Hayder al-Khoei, who is a research director at England’s Centre for Academic Shia Studies, began typing out an epic series of tweets, mocking football hooligans while also satirising media’s portrayal of violence in the Middle East.

“The whole thread is a tongue-in-cheek imitation of how many Western analysts and journalists cover conflict in the Middle East,” he told BuzzFeed News.

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The Brit moved to attribute football hooliganism to “centuries-old” religious divisions between European nations.

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The academic tried explaining European culture to Arabs.

And he also applied current geopolitical dimensions to the incident.

However, in the end since most Twitter users failed to understand al-Khoei’s tone, the Brit had to explain that he was being sarcastic.