The Politics of Football in Iran

In late 1997 Iranian football made international headlines. In an article on the Islamic summit held in Iran, the Economist wrote that almost ‘anything can become a political football in Iran, including football’.[ ¹ ] This attention was precipitated by the political ramifications inside Iran of the national team’s tie against Australia in Melbourne on 29 November, which secured it a place in the 1998 World Cup. Since then, major international soccer games have often given rise to massive street demonstrations by young people. That football should cause so much excitement in Iran is not astonishing if one looks at it from a global perspective. Football is a game in which each team works together to try and occupy as much of the ‘territory’ of the other as it can, culminating in attempts symbolically to ‘conquer’ the other side’s stronghold by kicking the ball into the goal.[ ² ] The playing field thus becomes a metaphor for the competition between communities, cities and nations: football focuses group identities. The excitement that the game generates in Latin America is well known; Honduras and El Salvador even waged a brief ‘soccer war’ in 1969.[ ³ ]