The Best Intentions… 

According to the International Herald Tribune, the US military apologized for offending Afghani Muslims when it gave them soccer balls that had the Saudi flag on it.  The Saudi flag has the words Allah and Muhammad on it; those names in any form are considered sacred to Muslims.  The thought of kicking those sacred names was apparently offensive.

Soccer (or football, outside the US), is wildly popular in most other parts of the world, and has even been a source of national pride in an otherwise sometimes fractious Iraq.