Sports in Iran
The most popular sports in Iran are football, martial arts such as wrestling , taekwondo and judo, and weight training such as weightlifting .
Soccer
Football has been the sport with the greatest audience interest since the 1970s. Before the Islamic Revolution, there was a professional soccer league called the Takht-e Jamshid Cup, the Iranian national team won the Asian soccer championships three times in a row ( 1968 , 1972 and 1976 ) and Iranian soccer stars earned high salaries. After the revolution, the soccer league was abolished and replaced by a championship in 1981, where the provincial champions were determined first, who then competed against each other for the national championship title (Quds Cup). The private football clubs were nationalized, the clubs of Tehran had to give themselves revolutionary names.
Since all other entertainment options were abolished after the Islamic Revolution, football games repeatedly led to clashes between security forces and supporters of the football clubs. Since the new regime was particularly dependent on those groups that included football fans, the government did not dare to abolish the football leagues. However, the Iranian press regularly castigated that commercialization and fan culture were corrupt values of the West that should destroy traditional Iranian honesty.
At the end of the 1980s, the Islamic leadership realized that the ban on all entertainment was counterproductive as it had encouraged activities that were even more unpleasant for the regime. The television was challenged to produce content that people wanted to see. Sports broadcasts, especially football, were a welcome and innocuous topic, even though the athletes rarely wore the navel to the knee cover required by Sharia law for men. In 1987, Ayatollah Khomeini declared in a fatwa that it was compatible with Islam to show sports broadcasts or films by improperly dressed people on television as long as it did not serve to excite the audience. In 1989 a new soccer league was founded (Lig-e Azadegan), private soccer clubs and fan articles such as posters or magazines were allowed again. In the late 1990s, Iranian players found their way into foreign leagues, such as Mehdi Mahdavikia or Ali Daei in the Bundesliga. The Iranian professional league Persian Gulf Pro League is one of the strongest leagues in Asia today.
Winning the gold medal in football at the Asian Games in 1990 , participating in the 1998 in France and, above all, winning the game against the USA in Lyon caused great euphoria. After Mohammed Khatami's election victory last year, supporters were allowed to celebrate on the streets. Four years later, when the Iranian team did poorly in qualifying for the World Cup, people flocked to the streets again to vent their frustration. This time around, rumors circulated that the Iranian national team had been given instructions to lose so that the 1998 celebrations would not repeat themselves. Hundreds were arrested in the riots that followed. So far, the Iranian national team has qualified for a soccer World Cup five times: 1978 in Argentina , 1998 in France, 2006 in Germany , 2014 in Brazil and 2018 in Russia . At these World Cup tournaments, Iran was always eliminated in the preliminary round and was only able to win two games (1998: 2-1 against the United States and 2016: 1-0 against Morocco). Iran has drawn four times (1978: 1: 1 against Scotland, 2006: 1: 1 against Angola, 2014: 0: 0 against Nigeria, 2018: 1: 1 against Portugal), nine games were lost (1978: 0: 3 against the Netherlands and 1: 4 against Peru, 1998: 0: 1 against Yugoslavia 0: 2 against Germany and 2006: 1: 3 against Mexico and 0: 2 against Portugal, 2014: 0: 1 against Argentina and 1: 3 against Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2018: 1-0 against Spain).
Other team sports
Indoor football ( futsal ) is also popular in Iran . The Iranian national team has won the title in Asia seven times in a row since the Asian Cup was launched in 1999. Only in 2006, Japan, a team other than Iran won the Asian title. Iran has participated in four of the five futsal world championships held so far . The greatest success of the Iranian indoor footballers at world championships remains 4th place at the 1992 Futsal World Cup in Hong Kong. At that time, Iran lost to Spain 6: 9 in the game for third place. In the tournaments in 1996 (Spain), 2000 (Guatemala) and 2004 (Taiwan), Iran was eliminated in the preliminary round. Iran did not take part in the 1989 World Cup in the Netherlands.
Popular team sports are volleyball , basketball and water polo . In volleyball, Iran even managed to qualify for the men's volleyball World Cup , which took place in Japan in autumn 2006. The Iranians were eliminated in the preliminary round.
The sport of polo originated in ancient Iran and over time has become a national sport . Known in Persian as "Tschaugān", the game was already popular in Achaemenid Persia and is mentioned many times in Iranian literature.
Individual sports
There is a traditional Iranian sport called Varzesch-e Pahlavani since the 1930s . It combines weight training, ritual, traditional Iranian virtues and religious symbolism and is practiced in so-called zurichaneh ( power house ). This sport is very closely associated with the Shah's regime because, with Shaban Jafari, one of the leading figures of the Pahlavani was an outspoken supporter of the Shah and, on Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's birthdays, called on numerous athletes from the Zurchaneh to celebrate extensively. After the Islamic Revolution, the new government emphasized the religious symbolism of the Pahlavani and tried to position him against the perceived cultural aggression caused by Western sports. This was not very successful because the Iranian youth find the Pahlavani old-fashioned, even though the first Zurchaneh competition with international participation was organized in 2005.
Individual sports such as wrestling and weightlifting became popular out of the Zurchaneh tradition . Numerous Iranian Olympic and world champions testify to the strength of Iranian athletes in these two sports. The most important Iranian wrestler was Gholamreza Takhti in the 1950s, who is now heavily used by the sports authorities. Iranian weightlifters were very successful internationally from the 1940s to the 1960s, for example the Iranian weightlifter Hossein Rezazadeh currently holds the current world record in the +105 kg class. In addition, Rezazadeh won a gold medal each at the Summer Olympics in Sydney (2000) and Athens (2004), making him the only Iranian athlete to have been Olympic champion twice.
Recently successful sports have also included Taekwondo and Judo . In Athens, Hadi Saei Bonehkohal was the first Iranian to win the Olympic gold medal in Taekwondo (class 58-68 kg). The Iranian judoka and world champion Arasch Miresmaili caused a scandal at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens : The lot won the favorite for the gold medal in the first round of judo competitions, the Israeli fighter Ehud Vaks. Since it is forbidden for Iranian athletes to compete against Israeli athletes, Miresamili deliberately disregarded the weight limit in his class and was thus disqualified. Subsequently, he was rewarded with around $ 125,000 by the Iranian government as were the two Olympic champions from Athens Rezazadeh and Saei Bonehkohal.
The Iranian Olympic team won two gold, two silver and two bronze medals in Athens and took 29th place in the unofficial nation ranking together with Slovakia. The six medals for Iran were won in wrestling (two silver and one bronze medal), weightlifting (one gold medal) and taekwondo (one gold and one silver medal).
Even if motorsport is more of a marginal sport in Iran for cost reasons, at least the national rally championship received disproportionate attention, as Laleh Sadigh , who is very popular in her home country , was able to triumph against her male opponents in both 2004 and 2005. She was then hailed as an “ icon of feminism ”.
Persia also played an important role in the development of the game of chess . The game reached Persia via India , where it was modified. With the Islamization of Persia, the Arabs finally brought chess to Europe. The name of the game refers in the German language to the Persian word " Schāh ", which can be translated as "König". Immediately after the Islamic Revolution, chess was banned because the new regime classified it as a game of chance prohibited by Sharia law. In 1988 it was allowed again as long as no bets were made on the outcome of the game. Since one can dress according to Islamic regulations when playing chess, Iranian women like Atousa Pourkashiyan are also internationally active and successful.
Sport and politics
One point in Iranian sport, especially soccer, that is discussed again and again is the presence of women among the spectators. The religious leadership of the country is not only offended by the inadequate clothing of the players from an Islamic point of view, but also considers the choice of words of the fans in the stadium to be incompatible with the moral standards that are placed on women. Although numerous politicians, including Mahmud Ahmadineschād, spoke out in favor of women entering football stadiums in 2005 and exceptions were made in the past, the religious leader's last word has always been negative: women are still not allowed in the football stadium.
Women's sport was banned completely immediately after the revolution. Faezeh Hashemi - the daughter of former President Ali Akbar Hāschemi Rafsanjāni - successfully requested funds from the government to reserve sports facilities exclusively for women. Since then there have been sports halls and swimming pools that are at least temporarily only accessible to women and where women work as trainers, referees, officials or maintenance staff. This has caused the proportion of women who are active in sports to rise sharply. Faezeh Haschemi is also the founder of an event called the Muslim Women Games , in which women compete against each other in accordance with Olympic rules to the exclusion of the male public. The first such competition was held in Tehran in 1993.
For political reasons, Iran boycotted the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow because of the invasion of Soviet troops in Afghanistan. The Olympic Games were boycotted again in 1984, this time in opposition to the USA. Iranian athletes have always been present at the Olympic Games since 1988, but numerous athletes use competitions abroad to break away from Iran.
The Iranian sports organizations are considered inefficient and plagued by nepotism and bureaucracy.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c H. E. Chehabi: Sports . In: Mehran Kamrava, Manochehr Dorraj (Ed.): Iran Today, An Encyclopedia of Life in the Islamic Republic . tape 2 . Greenwood Press, Westport 2008, ISBN 978-0-313-34161-8 , pp. 464 f .
- ↑ a b H. E. Chehabi: Sports . In: Mehran Kamrava, Manochehr Dorraj (Ed.): Iran Today, An Encyclopedia of Life in the Islamic Republic . tape 2 . Greenwood Press, Westport 2008, ISBN 978-0-313-34161-8 , pp. 465 .
- ↑ a b H. E. Chehabi: Sports . In: Mehran Kamrava, Manochehr Dorraj (Ed.): Iran Today, An Encyclopedia of Life in the Islamic Republic . tape 2 . Greenwood Press, Westport 2008, ISBN 978-0-313-34161-8 , pp. 467 .
- ↑ a b c d H. E. Chehabi: Sports . In: Mehran Kamrava, Manochehr Dorraj (Ed.): Iran Today, An Encyclopedia of Life in the Islamic Republic . tape 2 . Greenwood Press, Westport 2008, ISBN 978-0-313-34161-8 , pp. 468 .
- ^ Britannica.com
- ↑ a b c H. E. Chehabi: Sports . In: Mehran Kamrava, Manochehr Dorraj (Ed.): Iran Today, An Encyclopedia of Life in the Islamic Republic . tape 2 . Greenwood Press, Westport 2008, ISBN 978-0-313-34161-8 , pp. 465 .
- ↑ offscreen.com ; Parastoo Do-Koohi, Interview With Laleh Sadigh, Champion of Professional Speed Car Race, Zanan 13 (116), January 2004, pp. 9-13.
- ↑ a b H. E. Chehabi: Sports . In: Mehran Kamrava, Manochehr Dorraj (Ed.): Iran Today, An Encyclopedia of Life in the Islamic Republic . tape 2 . Greenwood Press, Westport 2008, ISBN 978-0-313-34161-8 , pp. 469 .