EJP | In Depth | World Cup | Pro and cons of Iran’s World Cup participation

	Monday, October 13, 2008 14 Tishrei, 5769

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Pro and cons of Iran’s World Cup participation

Updated: 05/Jul/2006 14:03

Vahid Hashemian, a player on Iran’s national team

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BERLIN (EJP)--- Germany’s Jewish weekly, the Juedische Allgemeine (JAZ) recently asked sports journalist Martin Kruse and political analyst Matthias Kuentzel to discuss the pros and cons of Iran’s participation at this year’s tournament.

Kuentzel argued that such international sporting events were highly politicised. A national team represents the nation for which the team is playing.

Kuentzel believes that particularly in Iran, sports and politics are more closely intertwined than in any other country.

He argues this by pointing to the prohibition of women in sports arenas in which men are playing. He questions whether it is in the spirit of the FIFA to tolerate a policy from a country in which 50 percent of a national population can be banned from a stadium.

Furthermore, Iran’s national Olympic committee has given the official order that none of its athletes are to play against athletes of the “Zionist regime” – namely Israel.

Vahid Hashemian, a player on Iran’s national team, found a way to be sick on the day that his former football club, Bayern Muenchen was to play against Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Whether or not Hashemian knew that his Bayern Muenchen club was founded by a Jew is another question.

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Iran has found ways of avoiding international confrontation for its sporting policy against Israel.

Kuentzel is convinced that the FIFA is aware of such tactics and lets such policy slide.

However, the Iranian government’s current anti-Israel and Holocaust denial policy should have convinced FIFA to rethink its own policy of tolerance according to Kuentzel. “Sport should bring people and governments closer together,” he said.

He believes that a line needed to be drawn “when one member of the United Nations makes loud calls to annihilate another country…while at the same time making attempts at acquiring nuclear technology”.

He lauded Spain, Ukraine and Rumania for having cancelled football matches in Iran, in protest of Iranian policy against Israel. He was perplexed, however, that Green politicians Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Volker Beck’s calls on banning Iran from this year’s World Cup went unheard in parliaments throughout Europe.

No penalisation of players

Instead, Martin Krauss, editor of the football magazine “RUND,” supports Germany’s interior minister Wolfgang Schaeuble’s argument that “Iranian players and their fans should not be penalised for the politics of their leaders” – preferring to support FIFA’s “clear separation of politics and sports” policy.

He questions the effectiveness of keeping the ball away from Iran, like one does from a small child when it has been naughty.

“Can we expect the democratisation and civilising of Iran to take place through such experimentation? It will not work.”

“Politics should not command football. It has existed for as long as pluralistic society has – and it has always been a bit subversive,” Krauss said.