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ANALYSIS / Iran soccer protest particularly shaming for Ahmadinejad
By Nadav Shemer, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 

The anti-government protest by several members of the Iranian national soccer team Wednesday dealt a particularly embarrassing blow to Iran's rulers, despite their small scale in comparison to the mass demonstrations in Tehran this past week.

At least seven Iranian players wore green tape on their wrists during a World Cup qualifying match in South Korea, in an apparent sign of solidarity with protesters demonstrating over last week's disputed presidential election, which hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won with a landslide victory.
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The unprecedented act of defiance in Seoul was particularly surprising given that Iranian sporting heroes have long been used as pawns to suit their government's propaganda needs.


Team Melli, as the national squad is known to its millions of adoring fans, has historically been one of the strongest teams in Asia, and regularly plays in front of crowds of over 100,000 at Tehran's Azadi ("Freedom") Stadium.

The team is so important to the people of Iran that before the elections, some commentators even went so far as to suggest that Ahmadinejad's success hinged on the national team's success.

Ahmadinejad, who regularly attends national matches and has even trained with the squad in the past, increased his involvement in the team's affairs leading up to the elections. He promised to personally help it achieve international success, and even sent his presidential jet to Pyongyang to fly the team back to Iran after a qualifying game.

The national team has not always been so fortunate. An entire generation of Iranian soccer players missed out on competing in World Cup qualifiers in the decade following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, due to the devastating eight-year war with Iraq and the indifference of the new Islamist regime to soccer and to sport in general.

Things eventually took a turn when Iran qualified for the World Cup in France in 1998, and the ruling clerics began to understand that soccer and politics make convenient bedfellows.

As fate would have it, the United States was one of Iran's three opponents in France. The teams posed for a joint photo and exchanged gifts before the match, in an attempt to encourage good relations between the two countries. Conveniently for the Iranian government, Team Melli won 2-1 (its first and only victory at a World Cup), sparking mass celebrations back home.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who no doubt took little interest in the actual game, told the nation afterwards: "Tonight again the strong and arrogant opponents felt the bitter taste of defeat at your hands."

In its continuous attempts to encourage success, the Iranian government has overstepped acceptable boundaries. In 2006, soccer's world governing body FIFA temporarily banned Iran from international competition after the government-controlled Physical Education Organization forced the removal of the Iranian Football Federation chief, Mohammad Dadkan, over the team's unsuccessful showing at the World Cup in Germany.

Dadkan later claimed he was subjected to personal abuse after Iran was eliminated from the tournament, including being labeled a "Zionist collaborator."

The Iranian government routinely interferes in other sports too. Since 1979, it has prohibited its athletes from competing against Israelis - Iranian judoka Arash Miresmaeili famously pulled out of the 2004 Athens Olympics after being slated to fight Israel's Ehud Vaks in the first round.

Because of the role played by Iranian athletes in protecting their regime's interests, it is particularly meaningful when some of them make the momentous decision to protest against their government.

The protest aside, Iran failed to qualify for the 2010 World Cup after only managing a 1-1 draw in the game against South Korea. (Interestingly, the result made way for North Korea - home to a totalitarian regime far more closed and repressive than anything Iranians could ever imagine - to qualify instead).

However, for Iranians the game's disappointing result will be overshadowed by the protest itself. Not only does it deliver a morale boost to reformist demonstrators, it also embarrasses Ahmadinejad and the ruling clerics at the worst possible time, and strips the regime of a key weapon that it might have used in its effort to quash the mass dissent.

Related articles:
  • Iranian soccer players wear green bands in sign of solidarity
  • Mousavi supporters rally in Iran, mourn dead
  • Rights groups: Reformists seized in Iran crackdown
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