Since the early days of Islamism physical fitness has been part of the ideal set up for young Muslim men. Within Islamist-run sports programmes soccer quickly came to dominate. By 1946 the Muslim Brothers (MB) ran 99 football clubs across Egypt. Later varying degrees of state oppression made it difficult for the Egyptian MB to run this kind of outreach activities. Still their bonds to the soccer community remained strong, and across the Arab world Islamist movements have integrated the beautiful game as part of their activities not least when it comes to recruiting youth. The recent World Cup in Qatar, and not least the stellar performance there of the Moroccan national team, has boosted popular enthusiasm for football more than ever across the Arab world and beyond. Yet the increased visibility of the sport serves also to put into plain sight a number of societal tensions surrounding it, tensions which directly impact the relation of Islamism to the world of soccer. State suppression has not remained the only challenge facing Islamist football activities. On the one hand elements within the conservative salafi trend have criticised the playing, and not least the watching, of the game as a waste of time that could have been used purposefully in furthering the cause of the faith and improving the lot of society, and have warned against the exposure of the players’ bare skin during matches watched by thousands. On the other hand the growth of a combative and flamboyant supporter culture associated with the ultras phenomenon challenges the norms of modesty and self-restraint always preached by Islamists, and is seen as carrying the danger of fanaticism and of splitting the umma by pitting people against each other according to which club they support. Finally the emergence and rapid growth of female football in the MENA region has put in sharp focus how entrenched patriarchal ideas about the need not to expose the female body works as a brake on equal opportunities for physical exercise. The paper will investigate how mainstream Islamists have navigated these conflicting challenges, and ask how they have affected the ability of Islamist movements to recruit youth. It will draw on historical evidence from Egypt, and on developments in Egypt and Morocco over the last couple of decades.