Skip to content
  • Image
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Youtube
  • Podcasts
  • Email
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Opinion
  • News
  • Features
  • Comment
  • Store
The Arab Daily News

The Arab Daily News

Original news, features, opinions from Chicago to Jerusalem

  • About
    • About
    • Our Writers
    • Subscribe to Ray’s Columns
    • Book Store
    • Contact
    • Submit Book Reviews, Press Releases
    • Advertise
    • Privacy Corrections Policy
    • Profile on Ray Hanania
    • Submit Press Release
  • Features
    • Food
    • Book Review
    • Humor
    • Movies
    • Travel
  • Arab Stores Targeted
  • Arab Community Network Page
    • Arab Community Network Page
    • Arab Heritage America resources
    • Directory
      • Groups & Organizations
      • Mosques, Churches
      • Restaurants
      • 2008 & 2014 Arab Media Directories
    • National Arab Heritage Month
    • Video: Chicago Arab History
    • Video: Photo Array of Chicago Arabs
    • Overview of Arabs in America
    • Hanania standup comedy
    • Arabs on the Titanic
    • Obituaries
  • Podcasts
    • Arab News Ray Hanania Radio
    • Ray Hanania on Politics Podcast
    • Podcast Info
    • Hanania Podcast intro
    • Live Arab Radio
  • Your Views
  • Hanania on Tiktok
  • Toggle search form
  • Arab Democratic Club Feb 12, 2023 Forum & Brunch flier
    Arab Democrats host forum for Chicago and suburban candidates Feb. 12 American Arabs
  • The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced Dr. Manal Fakhoury has been elected to the position of Chair of the National Board of Directors, and that attorneys Spojmie Nasiri of California and John Floyd of Texas have joined the organization’s National Board.
    CAIR Announces Dr. Manal Fakhoury as New Board Chair, New Board Members Spojmie Nasiri and John Floyd American Arabs
  • AHRC Executive Director Imad Hamad
    AHRC: Honor Dr. King Day with Civility, Unity, and Action American Arabs
  • Citgo Gas Station and Quik Mart at 3759 W. Chicago Ave in Chicago ordered closed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot because a street gang member with an AK-47 killed someone in front of the store. Only Arab and Muslim stores are being closed by the Mayor
    When Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot targeted Arab businesses in 2021 and 2022 Activism
  • Hussam al-Mayman, The Mayman Show, podcast Arab News
    Arab News launches third season of The Mayman Show podcast Arab News
  • State Rep. Cyril Nichols interviewed on live Arab American radio in Detroit with host Ray Hanania Friday Dec. 9, 2022
    Nichols discusses need to improve Arab-Black relations in Chicagoland American Arabs
  • Voting sticker issued to voters in Cook County elections in 2016. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania
    Gov. Pritzker Announces Six Appointments to Boards and Commissions — no Arabs included American Arabs
  • Closure notice posted on the doors and windows of Arab American businesses during Mayor Lori Lightfoot's closure of Arab owned stores in June - Sept. 2021. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania
    Pritzker again ignores needs of Arab businesses in latest appointments Activism
  • Arab American Democratic Club (AADC) official candidate endorsements for the November 8, 2022 General elections.
    Arab American Democratic Club issues endorsements for Nov. 8, 2022 Cook County Illinois elections Activism
  • Arab Democrats urge NO VOTE on Gov. J.B. Pritzker re-election bid Activism
  • Assyrian American GOP issues endorsements in Nov, 8, 2022 elections
    Assyrian American GOP group endorses candidates in Illinois Activism
  • Abdullah Hammoud, elected Mayor of Dearborn Nov. 2, 2021. Photo courtesy of Abdullah Hammoud Facebook Page
    AHRC’s 2022 Spirit of Humanity Gala a Great Success American Arabs
  • Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts
    Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts Arab World
  • Rep. Cyril Nichols to be feted by supporters at fundraiser Saturday Oct. 22 Activism
  • Stand up For Human Rights website, United Nations
    UN experts condemn Israel’s ‘sadistic’ punitive measures against French-Palestinian rights defender Salah Hammouri Activism

Soccer: Iranian moderates and hardliner lock horns on the pitch

Posted on December 29, 2015June 12, 2019 By James Dorsey No Comments on Soccer: Iranian moderates and hardliner lock horns on the pitch
SHARE ...
          
 
  

  • Tweet

By James M. Dorsey

James M. Dorsey, author, writer, blogger
James M. Dorsey, author, writer, blogger

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani suffered in the run-up to crucial elections in early 2016 what amounted to at least a symbolic defeat when state-run television banned Iran’s most popular soccer program from running an interview with his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on soccer and politics.

Amid confusion about the reason for the ban, Iranians worried that not only was their beloved, already highly politicized sport being dragged further into the country’s power struggle but also that government-controlled television was taking sides in a partisan struggle.

Iranian media reported that Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the country’s broadcast authority, had banned Mr. Zarif’s appearance because of his liberal views and the fact that his appearance on the soccer show might brand him as a leader in the mould of nationalist president Mohammed Mossadegh, who was toppled in 1953 in a US and British-backed coup.

“Iran’s soccer diplomacy: ‘anything goes’ in fight for parliament seats,” said one headline referring to polling in February to elect both the Islamic republic’s legislature as well as its Assembly of Experts, the forum that appoints the country’s spiritual leader. The assembly, which is elected for a period of eight years, could well be the first in 26 years to appoint a new spiritual and political leader with 76-year old Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei believed to be suffering from prostate cancer.

Iranian soccer
Iranian soccer

Former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a moderate who headed the assembly until 2009 said in a reference to Mr. Khamenei’s health that the council had recently “appointed a group to list the qualified people that will be put to a vote (in the assembly) when an incident happens.”

He said Iran was “getting ready for determining its fate for years to come” with February’s elections for parliament and the assembly. Mr. Khamenei has rejected attempts in recent months by Rouhani to limit the assembly’s ability to bar moderates from standing as candidates.

Efforts by hardliners with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in the lead to control soccer underline the importance of the pitch as a battleground in the struggle for Iran’s future in the wake of the nuclear agreement with Iran and the expected lifting of stringent United Nations sanctions that Western nations hope will boost Mr. Rouhani in the elections.

The significance of soccer has been heightened by Iran’s poor international performance as well as allegations of match-fixing scandals that have forced the guard to justify its involvement in the sport.

In a recent interview with sports magazine Tamashagaran Emrooz (Today’s Spectators), Guards commander Azizallah Mohammedi, a former board member of the Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFIRI) argued that the military group’s involvement in soccer had grown from the fact that some of its members had played soccer in the past. He said they had become soccer managers not as part of a Guards strategy but because of the qualifications and skills they brought to the table.

Mohammed Dadkan, who served as FFIRI president from 2002 to 2006, however dismissed Mr. Mohammedi’s portrayal in an interview in August.  “Managers in the world of football world are corrupt. Unfortunately, people who know nothing about football are involved in this sport – managers from the Guards and the Law Enforcement Forces,” Mr. Dadkan said.

IGRC commanders have served at various times as head of Persepolis FC, one of Iran and Asia’s top clubs while Lotfollah Forouzandeh Dehkordi, a guard commander and former vice-president under Rouhani’s hard-line predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a member of its board.

Fajr Sepasi FC, a club in Shiraz owned by The Organization for Mobilization of the Oppressed or Basij, a voluntary militia associated with the guards, is directed by Colonel Zohrab Qanbari Mahardou.

Brigadier-General Gholam-Asgar Karimian is chairman of Tractor Sazi FC, a top flight club in Tabriz, the capital of East Azerbaijan, whose supporters have protested in recent years against the government’s environmental policy and at times raised Azeri nationalist slogans. The club’s president is former Guard Saeed Abbassi while another commander, Mostafa Ajorlou, the guards’ former head of physical training, is a member of its board.

Traktor Sazi is owned for 70 percent by the city’s state-owned tractor company, which in turn is owned by Mehr-e Eqtesad-e Iranian Investment Company that was sanctioned by the US Treasury as a subsidiary of Mehr Bank, an IGRC financial institution. The remain 30 percent by the Defence Ministry’s by Kosar Financial Institution.

Mr. Ajorlou, wh en he headed Steel Azin FC before joining the Traktor Sazi board, tried to sack top Iranian player Ali Karimi for allegedly not fasting during Ramadan and questioning the commander’s decisions.

Azar news, a news agency operated by the National Resistance Organization of Azerbaijan (NROA), a coalition of opposition forces dominated by the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, a group that was tainted when it moved its operations in 1986 to Iraq at a time that Iraq was at war with Iran, this month leaked a letter allegedly written by General Karimian detailing how Traktor Sazi could be used to unite Azeris against what the general termed “racist and separatist groups.”

The letter said the groups were campaigning for a “study the mother tongue day.” It suggested that the mother tongue referred to was Talysh, a dying northwest Iranian language that is still spoken by at most a million people in the Iranian provinces of Gilan and Ardabil and the southern Azerbaijan.

The letter implied that the groups General Karimian was concerned about were Azeris separatists, Islamists and Turkish Alevis, a sect viewed as heretical by orthodox Islam that accounts for up to 20 percent of Turkey’s populations.

If anything, the letter’s focus appeared to advocate measures to weaken Azeri separatist groups by combatting widespread racist attitudes towards Azeris and improving services in East Azerbaijan. Racial attitudes towards Azeris is something Traktor Sazi knows a lot about.

“Wherever Tractor goes, fans of the opposing club chant insulting slogans. They imitate the sound of donkeys, because Azerbaijanis are historically derided as stupid and stubborn. I remember incidents going back to the time that I was a teenager,” said a long-standing observer of Iranian soccer.

As a result, stadia in which Traktor Sazi Tabriz FC play are repeatedly the venue for protests demanding greater rights for Iran’s Azeri minority. During one clash in 2013 in Teheran’s Azadi stadium with the capital’s storied Persepolis FC, Traktor Sazi supporters unfurled a banner saying in English: “South Azerbaijan isn’t Iran,” a reference to East Azerbaijan that borders on Azerbaijan.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, a syndicated columnist, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog and a forthcoming book with the same title.

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
James Dorsey
Follow Me
James Dorsey
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the same title.
James Dorsey
Follow Me
Latest posts by James Dorsey (see all)
  • Soccer highlights domestic drivers in Saudi-Iranian dispute - January 4, 2016
  • Soccer: Iranian moderates and hardliner lock horns on the pitch - December 29, 2015
  • Trade unions test Qatari sincerity with demands for labour reform - December 20, 2015

  • Tweet

SHARE ...
          
 
  
 
          
 
 Tweet 
Arab World, Bloggers, Commentary, Sports Tags:Iran, Khomeini, Soccer

Post navigation

Previous Post: Recipe: Arabian lamb, egg skillet for breakfast
Next Post: Dubai ranked as Number 2 destination for New Year

Related Posts

  • American Palestinian to Sail “The Liberty” in honor of the USS Liberty and his Mother Arab World
  • The Balfour Declaration and Brother Harold American Arabs
  • Resurrection of Mordechai Vanunu Ends the Legend of Vanunu American Arabs
  • Podcast: Who’s Who in Iraq, Syria conflicts Ali Younes
  • Racist Israeli soccer fans in the firing line Arab World
  • Former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi who was murdered by oppressive policies and a denial of healthcare by the Egyptian Government of Abdel Fattah al-Sissi. Photo courtesy of the USMCO
    UN and rights groups denounce Egypt’s abuse of Morsi Arab World

More Related Articles

David Cameron’s failed policy on terrorism and extremism Arab World
Tunis, Tunisia. Copyright (C) 2014 Abdennour Toumi, All Rights Reserved. Tunisia has hope Tunisia in transition with hope and challenges, UN expert says Arab World
Israel arrests Palestinian journalist in West Bank Arab World
Presidential Candidate Alu Ghediri, Algeria. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Why General Ali Ghediri’s candidacy is way too early?  Abdennour Toumi
Mordechai Vanunu Birthday Vigil, Supreme Court Date, Jesus and John Lennon Arab World
UNHCR, The UN Refugees Agency revealed that 648,476 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees were assisted in the first half of 2019 with Zakat funds received through its ‘Refugee Zakat Fund’. Zakat Foundation Launches Muslim Philanthropy Graduate Institute Arab World

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

  • OPINION COLUMNS
  • Tiktok.com/@RayHanania
    Israeli-push behind effort to ban Tiktok in the United States
    January 19, 2023
  • Ghassan Rubeiz
    To what extent is Hezbollah responsible for the current crisis in Lebanon?
    January 17, 2023
  • Image from Rashid-al-Din Hamadani's "A Compendium of Chronicles. Image courtesy of Wikipedia
    Why allow religious extremists to re-define Islam in the West?
    January 10, 2023
  • CAIR Executive Director and co-founder Nihad Awad
    This Thanksgiving, let’s use our Blessings for good
    November 23, 2022
  • NEWS
  • Arab Democratic Club Feb 12, 2023 Forum & Brunch flier
    Arab Democrats host forum for Chicago and suburban candidates Feb. 12
    January 18, 2023
  • The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced Dr. Manal Fakhoury has been elected to the position of Chair of the National Board of Directors, and that attorneys Spojmie Nasiri of California and John Floyd of Texas have joined the organization’s National Board.
    CAIR Announces Dr. Manal Fakhoury as New Board Chair, New Board Members Spojmie Nasiri and John Floyd
    January 12, 2023
  • AHRC Executive Director Imad Hamad
    AHRC: Honor Dr. King Day with Civility, Unity, and Action
    January 11, 2023
  • Citgo Gas Station and Quik Mart at 3759 W. Chicago Ave in Chicago ordered closed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot because a street gang member with an AK-47 killed someone in front of the store. Only Arab and Muslim stores are being closed by the Mayor
    When Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot targeted Arab businesses in 2021 and 2022
    January 4, 2023
  • NEWSWIRE
  • Arab Democratic Club Feb 12, 2023 Forum & Brunch flier
    Arab Democrats host forum for Chicago and suburban candidates Feb. 12
    January 18, 2023
  • The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced Dr. Manal Fakhoury has been elected to the position of Chair of the National Board of Directors, and that attorneys Spojmie Nasiri of California and John Floyd of Texas have joined the organization’s National Board.
    CAIR Announces Dr. Manal Fakhoury as New Board Chair, New Board Members Spojmie Nasiri and John Floyd
    January 12, 2023
  • AHRC Executive Director Imad Hamad
    AHRC: Honor Dr. King Day with Civility, Unity, and Action
    January 11, 2023
  • Stand up For Human Rights website, United Nations
    UN experts condemn Israel’s ‘sadistic’ punitive measures against French-Palestinian rights defender Salah Hammouri
    October 19, 2022

Creative Commons License
All work on this website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Do not edit original work. Give credit to the original source.

  • 08-09-21-Ziyad-Sices-Ad.jpg
  • 08-09-21-Ziyad-Ad-Pantry-essentials.jpg
  • ZiyadBrandLogo-2016BlackRedBackgrnd.jpg
  • BOOK REVIEWS
  • Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts
    Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts
    October 24, 2022
  • Stories My Father Told Me by author and artist Helen Zughaib, book cover. Photo courtesy of Cune Press
    Stories My Father Told Me by author and artist Helen Zughaib
    November 1, 2021
  • ENTERTAINMENT
  • Hussam al-Mayman, The Mayman Show, podcast Arab News
    Arab News launches third season of The Mayman Show podcast
    December 15, 2022
  • Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts
    Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts
    October 24, 2022
  • Comedian Ramy Youssef courtesy of his Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ramysfaceboo/
    “Ramy” cable series melds Arab world reality with every day American life
    October 22, 2022
  • The Ray Hanania Radio Show Live Wed 5 PM EST in Detroit, Washington DC, Ontario and on Thursday in Chicago. Watch the program live at Facebook.com/ArabNews
    Second Season of “The Ray Hanania Show” Arab American radio launches April 6
    April 4, 2022
  • American Arab CHamber President HassanNijem accepts the Proclamation from Chicago Ald. Roderick Sawyer at the Chamber dinner March 30, 2022
    Chicagoland celebrates Arab American Heritage Month
    March 31, 2022
  • New-iTunes-1400-x-1400-The-Ray-Hanania-Show-Podcast-Icon-300-x-300.jpg
  • powerpr300x300ad.jpg
  • terroristbookcover-300-x-300.jpg
  • Podcast-iTunes-Logo-Chi-City-Hall-1985.jpg
  • The-Kings-Pawn-Book-300-x-300.png
Arab News Newspaper Logo
Read the Arab News, the leading English language newspaper in the MIddle East

Follow Ray Hanania at Gab.com, MeWe.com and IDobbinate.com, the alternatives to Facebook and Twitter Censorship.

Click here to get information on The Ray Hanania Radio Show and its podcasts

Copyright © 2023 The Arab Daily News.

Powered by PressBook Premium theme