despite the risks, an unfailing commitment of Iranian footballers

The Iranians, who are demonstrating for the twelfth successive night throughout the country and who are trying to get their calls for help abroad, can count on the mobilization of Team Melli, their national football team.

Iranian players, adored in a country crazy about football, took advantage of the disputed friendly match against Senegal, Tuesday, September 27, in Austria, to protest soberly and symbolically against the campaign of repression against demonstrators, mobilized since the death of Mahsa Amini.

At the time of the traditional national anthems, the players indeed presented themselves on the lawn with an opaque black parka masking the Iranian flag and the crest which adorn the Team Melli jersey.

This highly political initiative had a great impact and comes a few days after the public position of several leading players in the selection who openly showed their support for the demonstrators.

“Long live the women of Iran”

Very offensive and on the front line, as on the ground, Sardar Azmoun published, on September 26, an unequivocal message in a story on his Instagram account. “The [punition] The ultimate goal is to be expelled from the national team, which is a small price to pay for even a single lock of Iranian hair, wrote the striker who played in the Bundesliga, in the ranks of Bayer Leverkusen. It will never be erased from our consciousness. I’m not afraid of being ousted. Shame on you for killing the people so easily and long live the women of Iran.”

For the record, it was he, the star of the team, who scored the goal of the Iranian equalizer against Senegal (1-1), yesterday, during this preparation match for the World Cup in Qatar, the 3rd consecutive World Cup that the selection will play.

This is not the first time that the national team has taken up the cause of protesters of the theocratic regime. On June 17, 2009, during a qualifying match for the 2010 World Cup between South Korea and Iran, a handful of Iranian players tied their wrists with a green bracelet, the color of opponents to the very challenged by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. An initiative which had earned four of them a definitive exclusion from the national team, while the power massively repressed the challenge.

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At the time, among the excluded players was the great star of Iranian football: Ali Karimi. It is therefore not surprising to see, this time too, this former Bayern Munich player, nicknamed the “Asian Maradona”, speak almost daily to express his solidarity with Iranian women via social networks.

Very committed and known for his outspokenness, he even called on the Iranian army not to “let the blood of the innocents flow”.

A popular sport under close surveillance

It is because of this freedom of tone that the Islamic Republic still looks with great suspicion on these footballers who are hardly afraid of the risk of reprisals and, in general, on this sport capable of upsetting millions of enthusiasts across the country and lead to scenes of jubilation in the streets.

The authorities know that if the fervor around local clubs, such as FC Persépolis and Esteghlal FC, is well established, the veneration of the supporters of Team Melli, a link between Iranians and their diaspora, surpasses everything.

Ironically, the very first international title won by this selection which is the pride of the country was the 1968 Asian Cup of Nations, after a victory in the final disputed in Tehran against … Israel. At the time, the Shah was still in power, and the Israeli selections were members of the Asian confederations, before switching to the European sphere for security reasons.

Tensions with FIFA

The current power, which for a time sought to prevent the development of football in the country, tried to exploit its popularity by trying to interfere in the affairs of a selection which can sometimes be used to send diplomatic messages: as during the famous match of 1998, when the Iranian players had offered, as a sign of peace, a bouquet of flowers to their American adversaries.

Even to polish his image, with the tweet published by the account of the then president, the moderate religious Hassan Rohani, sitting on a sofa in front of a television screen, swapping his traditional outfit for a Team Melli jersey, in front of the Iran-Nigeria match of the 2018 World Cup.

A cohabitation between politics and sport which has led to strong tensions with Fifa. The Federation frequently lobbies Iran to open stadiums to women. The clerics, in power in Tehran, had, until 2019, authorized only a limited number of women, officially to protect them from male rudeness.

In March 2022, nearly 2,000 Iranian women, despite having tickets to attend the Iran-Lebanon match, were unable to enter a stadium in Tehran, triggering a new scandal.

Alireza Jahanbakhsh, a Team Melli executive, then voiced his disapproval. “I don’t think anything would have happened if the women had come to the stadium, and on the contrary it can promote our culture,” he said, according to comments reported by Iranian public television Irib.

A few years earlier, in November 2006, Fifa had decided to suspend Iran from “all international football-related activity” due to “government interference” and violation of the statutes of the international body. At the time, the president of the Iranian Federation, Mohammed Dadkan, was sacked following criticism from the country’s leaders after the failure of the 2006 World Cup.