Human Lives Human Rights: The mainstream media has been reporting that due to Russia’s use of Iranian drones in the Ukraine war, Ukraine has demanded the national football team of the Islamic Republic of Iran to be banned from participating in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Now, let’s examine what’s behind the scenes.
Despite the fact that it has always been claimed that sports are separate from politics, but most of the times, sports events have been influenced by politics.
For example, the Italian national football team won the World Cup in 1934 and 1938 by lobbying behind the scenes of the Italian fascist government.
Also, in the 1978 Argentina World Cup, which was contemporaneous to Juan Peron’s dictatorial rule, the path to the championship of the Argentine national football team in this competition was provided through the negotiations behind the scenes of Buenos Aires with the then officials of the International Football Federation (FIFA).
This situation continued until the national team of Argentina defeated the powerful Peruvian team with a score of 6-0 and thus reached the finals of the competition.
Also, in the England-Argentina match, which was held in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico under the influence of the Falkland War between these two countries, Diego Maradona opened the English Peter Shilton’s goal with his hand and later called this move as the hand of God.
Another example is the match between the Iranian national team and the United States in the 1998 World Cup in France, which was influenced by the severity of relations between the two countries and the offensive movements of the opposition groups of the Islamic Republic of Iran in France and the city of Lyon.
We can also consider the 2002 World Cup competition between South Korea and Japan as an example. In these competitions, in a completely suspicious way, succeeded in defeating the three undisputed powers of world football, that is, Portugal, Italy and Spain. The game against Spain was more suspicious than the other two games. because in this competition, at least two goals scored by the Spanish national team against the South Korean national team were rejected by the Egyptian referee.
But regarding the demand to ban Iran national football team in the FIFA World cup, it should be said that this action has a history. Because in the midst of the previous Yugoslav army’s invasion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Yugoslav national football team was banned from the 1992 European Cup and the 1994 American World Cup.
Also, recently, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, all Russian athletes were banned from participating in various sports tournaments. For example, the national football team of this country was banned from participating in the play-offs of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Therefore, there is a potential possibility the Iranian national football team will be banned from participating in the 2022 Qatar World Cup.
