Using Soccer to Kick Iran
Dave Zirin & John Cox
The World Cup the month long competition taking place throughout Germany
beginning June 9 is by sheer numbers the most important sporting event on
earth. Football or soccer, as Americans insist on calling it is by far the
world's most popular sport, and the World Cup creates a near-united global
audience. Approximately one in four human beings will view this year's final
game. That means basically anyone who has access to a television will be
watching though probably fewer in the United States, where "soccer" is still
viewed in some quarters as a plot to create a one-world government.
Politics cannot be separated from the World Cup any more than it can be from
the Olympics. Sometimes this is for the best: For example, Africans throughout
the continent exulted in Senegal's shocking upset of its former colonizer,
France, in the first game of the 2002 Cup.
This year, however, German and US politicians have seized on the tournament to
intensify the saber rattling aimed at Tehran. Citing Iran's efforts to develop
a nuclear program and the anti-Israel pronouncements of Iranian president
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, several leading politicians in both countries have called
for the Iranian team to be banned from the World Cup. In this spirit of
tolerance and peace, Berlin's liberal daily Der Tagesspiegel ran a cartoon in
February that depicted Iranian soccer players as suicide bombers.
Now Germany's conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel has further stoked this
sentiment by likening Iran's nuclear plans to the threat posed by the Nazis.
Italian reform minister Roberto Calderoli of the anti-immigrant Northern
League called on the international soccer federation (FIFA) to exclude Iran
and other "rogue states," and in recent weeks British Conservatives--perhaps
distraught over their own team's dwindling prospects, after an injury to their
best player--have gotten in on the act.
Back in Germany, some Christian Democrats have further upped the ante by
invoking the specter of Iranian terrorism at the games, asserting that Tehran
will slip some suicide bombers disguised as regular fans into a game. Calls
for a ban, or at least for a travel ban against the Iranian president, have
intensified in Germany as the games approach. Leading Conservative and Social
Democratic officials are now quoted almost daily decrying a possible visit by
Ahmadinejad. And in early May, a German newspaper reported that officials of
Germany, France and Britain are hoping to orchestrate a travel-ban scheme
through the European Union that would prevent high-ranking Iranian officials
from attending any of the games.
In the most recent gambit, on May 12 a group of European Union representatives
presented a letter to FIFA demanding that Iran be evicted from the games. The
hypocrisy of this quasi-extortion is overwhelming: Iran should be banned
because its leaders indulge in belligerent rhetoric and attempt to develop a
nuclear program, yet no one advocates the exclusion of the United States, even
though it is engaged in two military occupations, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and
President Bush has refused to rule out a nuclear strike on Iran.
Despite its drive to demonize and isolate Iran, the United States has been
slower than its German counterparts to use soccer in this campaign, given the
sport's relative obscurity here. But a few politicians have craftily picked up
on it. On April 6, Senator John McCain, Mr. Maverick, introduced a resolution
to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee advocating a World Cup ban on
Iran--a resolution that is sure to go nowhere. To its credit, FIFA has
rejected all of these demands, and seems unlikely to budge. But much of this
anti-Iran campaign has less to do with the unrealistic goal of banning the
top-level Middle Eastern team than with grooming public opinion for
aggression.
Iran's blustery president seems less of a threat to Israel or to anyone else
than to the rights and welfare of his own people. Middle East expert Juan Cole
pointed out in a May 3 post on his blog that Ahmadinejad's overheated oratory
is hardly the gravest threat to world peace.
Cole argues, "Ahmadinejad is a non-entity. The Iranian 'president' is mostly
powerless. The commander of the armed forces is the Supreme Jurisprudent, Ali
Khamenei [who, by the way, just reinstated a ban on women's attendance at
soccer games that Ahmadinejad had reversed in April]. Worrying about
Ahmadinejad's antics is like worrying that the US military will act on the
orders of the secretary of the interior. Ahmadinejad cannot declare war on
anyone, or mobilize a military. So it doesn't matter what speeches he gives.
Moreover, Iran cannot fight Israel. It would be defeated in 72 hours, even if
the US didn't come in, which it would.... What is really going on here is an
old trick of the warmongers. Which is that you equate hurtful statements of
your enemy with an actual military threat, and make a weak and vulnerable
enemy look like a strong, menacing foe. Then no one can complain when you
pounce on the enemy and reduce his country to flames and rubble."
The Iranian people are even more enthusiastic about soccer than most of the
rest of the world. Iran even held a national day of celebration when its team
qualified for the Cup, and Iranian soccer fans look forward to cheering their
team on as it attempts to survive a difficult first round against Portugal and
Mexico. Perhaps the Iranian team will have an opportunity to repeat the
squad's upset of the United States in 1998. But this would be little
consolation if the Cup is used as a platform to further threaten their nation
with invasion or occupation.
"I would rather people built a clear wall between sport and politics," Iran's
Croatian-born coach Branko Ivankovic has said. But the Iranian people are
being reminded that, while soccer may be a beautiful game for them, it's
little more than a political weapon for others.
[JOHN COX is an assistant professor of History at Florida Gulf Coast
University and a supporter of FC Barcelona. DAVE ZIRIN is the author of
"What's My Name Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States" and wants to
fight for a world where soccer players can use their hands.]
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Contact the author at
dave@edgeofsports.com
May 2006
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