Iranian football coach Omid Ravankhah’s career could be over. And perhaps even bigger problems lie ahead. On Monday, Ravankhah was arrested at the airport in Teheran detained for several hours and questioned by secret service officials. He had to hand in his passport and has since reported regularly to security authorities. This was reported by the Iranian exile media.
What had happened? Omid Ravankhah, once a successful midfielder, has looked after the U-23 national team in recent weeks Iran’s at the Asian Championships in Saudi Arabia. At least before their first game against South Korea, the Iranian players refrained from singing the national anthem, a sign of solidarity with the demonstrators in Iran. After their final tournament game against Lebanon, coach Ravankhah went one step further. “Under these circumstances, it is my social duty to stand with my people,” he said at the press conference. “Regardless of what consequences this may have for me, I hope that their voices will be heard.”
Due to the internet blocking, little information from Iran has been made public for almost two weeks. But there are increasing signs that there are also a number of athletes among the thousands of dead in the protests. Mojtaba Torshizi, a former professional for the first division soccer team Tractor Tabriz, was shot dead by security forces in the northern Iranian city of Qaem-Shahr. In Parand, near Tehran, 17-year-old young footballer Rebin Moradi was killed. This is reported, among others, by the human rights organization Hengaw, which relies on sources in Iran.
These escalations provoked different reactions in football. Mehdi Taremi, the captain of the Iranian national football team, plays for Olympiakos Piraeus. He recently refrained from celebrating a goal in the Greek league. And later he said: “The people always stand behind us, and that’s why we stand behind them too. I couldn’t celebrate out of solidarity with the Iranian people.”
Other Iranian national players who play abroad, such as Alireza Jahanbakhsh and Sardar Azmoun, also expressed their solidarity with the demonstrators on social media. However, they refrained from directly criticizing the regime. Players and officials who had spoken clearly against those in power in the past were sometimes arrested. For example, the family of long-time national player and coach Ali Daei was prevented from leaving the country at the airport in Tehran in 2022.
In the country itself, some first league games have been canceled since the protests broke out. The majority of games played take place without spectators due to concerns about protests and expressions of solidarity.
Iranian football has sparked a political debate for years. In particular, experts at the critical exile broadcaster Iran International, which is based in London, are demanding that prominent Iranians ensure that their criticism goes beyond moderate expressions of solidarity.
The central institutions of Iranian football regularly position themselves politically, but in favor of the regime, because the national football association and many large clubs are closely linked to the Revolutionary Guard. And so in parts of the diaspora a different name has become established for the Iranian national team, the so-called “Team Melli”: “Team Mullah”.
The year 2022 is considered to be a defining year for this perception. After the violent death of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini, protests broke out across the country in September and several hundred people were killed. Two months after the protests broke out, the World Cup took place in Qatar. The Iranian players refused to sing the national anthem before their first game against England, but that wasn’t enough for many fans. They were angry that the team had met then-president Ebrahim Raisi before the tournament.
In the Qatari stadiums, exiles held placards with the protest slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom.” But fans also reported that security forces confiscated their banners, T-shirts and flags with the symbol of the old Iranian flag, lion and sun. An Iranian-American fan wearing a “Free Iran” T-shirt was taken away on camera. There were several scuffles between spectators loyal to the regime and those critical of the regime during the games. The latter even celebrated the 0-1 defeat in the third game against the USA.
One of the few prominent footballers who spoke out clearly against police violence in 2022 was the defender Vouria Ghafouri, who played for the Iranian national team until 2019. Ghafouri was arrested in Iran during the World Cup in Qatar in November 2022. He was released on bail after six days.
Vouria Ghafouri, who has since ended his career, is also raising his voice again in the current protests. In January, he closed the two cafes he runs in Tehran in solidarity on the two most violent days of protests and announced this on Instagram. No current national player has ever read such a clear positioning. The public prosecutor then closed his cafes for two months.
How will Iran present itself at the World Cup this year?
The Iranian association is financially dependent on the World Cup, more than other associations. Because of the international sanctions against the Islamic Republic, the national football association and its clubs are having problems finding international players and sponsors. The team has qualified. But the World Cup is taking place this summer in the USA, Canada and Mexico.
It is becoming increasingly unlikely that the Iranian national team will take part. On the one hand, because officials of the Iranian association are close to the Revolutionary Guards. Some national players such as captain Mehdi Taremi completed their military service there. During Donald Trump’s first term in office, the US government classified the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization in 2019. The official position of the US government so far is that players get a visa – but fans and officials do not.
But above all because since the protests, Iranian officials have also been skeptical about participating in the World Cup. Two of the Iranian team’s three preliminary round games are scheduled to take place in Los Angeles, where the world’s largest community of diaspora Iranians lives. Protests against the regime with a worldwide audience would be likely. Against this background, some Iranian sports officials would now like to see the Iranian team excluded from the World Cup, reports Iran-Wirea media portal in exile.
Nothing has been decided yet. Neither with regard to participation in the World Cup nor with regard to the protests. The government takes violent action against the protesters. And if the regime stays in power, the repression is unlikely to end. “These unrest will soon come to an end,” wrote the state news agency FARS. “But the real test for officials begins afterwards – when they have to show that calls for chaos will result in a decisive response.” That sounded like a threat. Also against the footballers who are critical of the regime, such as the U23 national coach Omid Ravankhah.
