April 01, 2018
Iran’s National Football Team (Team Melli) suffered a 0-1 defeat in a FIFA (International Federation of Association Football) pre-World Cup friendly match with Tunisia on March 23. The head coach of the Iranian National Football team, Carlos Queiroz, included the attacking midfielder Masoud Shjaei in the starting lineup. He’d previously allowed Shojaei to wear the captain armband in some of the qualifying games.
Meanwhile, Iranian authorities continue to chastise Shojaei and Ehsan Hajsafi for playing with their Greek club Panionios against Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv FC in 2017. Mohammad Reza Davarzani, Iran’s deputy sports minister, said at the time that Shojaei and Hajsafi would be banned for life.
Mohammad Ali Pourmokhtar, a member of the Judicial Committee of the Majlis (Iranian Parliament), has asked Masoud Soltanifar, the Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, to reprimand footballers who played in a match against the Israeli team. Pourmokhtar said Soltanifar would be called to explain the Ministry’s actions after the Nowrouz holidays.
“We don’t wish to politicize sports. Our objection to players who took part in a match against an Israeli team is not based on politics but beliefs. The sports authorities have some explaining to do,” Pourmokhtar said. He added: “The Iranian Football Federation didn’t take any meaningful actions against Shojaei and Hajsafi. It just slapped them on the wrist.”
In a thinly veiled criticism of Rasoul Khadem (former president of the Iran Wrestling Federation), Pourmokhtar said: “Those people who are concerned about the international sports disciplinary bodies penalizing Iranian athletes for refusing to face Israeli opponents are worried about themselves.”
Khadem, who resigned in February 2018, has repeatedly warned that Iran would be permanently banned from international competitions if the authorities continued to prevent athletes from facing Israeli opponents.
“I was hoping for the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports to deal decisively with Shojaei, but it instead went through the motions just to keep the public happy,” Pourmokhtar noted. The majority of Iranians, however, disapprove of the regime’s policies including those regarding sports.
Many ultraconservative Majlis deputies, senior security officials and commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) strongly oppose Iranian teams facing Israeli opponents. But the public would like to see Iranian athletes compete and excel in an environment devoid of politics.
