The Economist used the recent death of Iranian goalkeeper Nasser Hejazi to reflect on the state of football in Iran. Hejazi was a critic of the regime and was even banned from Iranian television for a while. 20,000 people turned up to the first part of his funeral at a stadium, some of them chanting anti-government slogans. His body was spirited away for a secret burial.
The Economist used the recent death of Iranian goalkeeper Nasser Hejazi to reflect on the state of football in Iran. Hejazi was a critic of the regime and was even banned from Iranian television for a while. 20,000 people turned up to the first part of his funeral at a stadium, some of them chanting anti-government slogans. His body was spirited away for a secret burial.
The structure of football in Iran is very reminiscent of conditions in the old Communist bloc when the secret police, the army and big factories all had their own teams. Of the 18 professional clubs in the country’s premier league, 17 are owned by government departments, agencies or industries.
Thus, Malavan is owned by the navy while appropriately enough Tractor Sazi is not an offshoot of Ipswich but is owned by the state tractor firm (which brings to mind Stalin’s machine tractor stations). Naft Tehran is owned by the national oil company while railway workers can support their team Rah Alan.
The clubs are often run by members of the Revolutionary Ground, fanatical hard liners, and they get help from Iran’s volunteer paramilitaries, the baseej (when they aren’t busy checking if women are wearing too much make up or showing too much ankle). The Economist commented, ‘In a football-crazy country, there is money, patronage and corruption in all this and, since Iran has only two private-sector teams, most of it is politically controlled.’
Women are, of course, not allowed to watch football matches, although unlike Saudi Arabia they can drive their male partner to the ground. However, when Iran won unexpected victories in the 1998 World Cup, even knocking out the Great Satan, men and women flocked on the streets to celebrate.
We saw in the regime change process in Egypt how groups of football supporters can contribute to such a transition, albeit sometimes with violence rather than argument – but often that is necessary to get rid of a repressive regime.
The attitude of EU countries towards Iran has been more ambivalent than that of the United States. There has been a wish at different times to use dialogue, possibly to exploit tensions within the regime. Football can form part of diplomacy.
When they were in the Premier League, Charton signed an Iran international who only made one appearance as a substitute in an away match they were losing and, as far as I can recall, only made contact with the ball once.
At the time this was presented as an attempt to appeal to the wealthy Iranian community in London. I have an alternative speculative explanation. Would the Foreign Office have been disapproving if a Premier League team had gone to play in Iran. And what better than a then mid-table team with a strong anti-racist record like Charlton?