Comment: The World Cup’s Iran paradox

 ROME -- As the FIFA World Cup kicks off in North America, football will take hold across stadiums, screens and capitals alike. Yet, behind the pageantry there sits an uncomfortable geopolitical contradiction, one of the host nations, the US, is welcoming into the tournament a country with which it is at war.

 This is not some minor, insignificant diplomatic inconvenience. It is a fundamental test of whether sport can truly be insulated from geopolitics if the stakes involve war, sanctions, terrorism, regional security and the credibility of American power. President Donald Trump largely has defined his domestic and foreign policy brand around the control of borders and the refusal to bow to hostile regimes. But just as the White House is tightening entry for nationals from countries like Somalia, it seems willing to tolerate the flag, anthem and the official delegation of the Islamic Republic of Iran within a US co-hosted (with Mexico and Canada) World Cup. This contradiction is hard to square.

 Of course, FIFA will say the World Cup belongs to football, not governments. That is the convenient and predicable line to take. However, international football has never existed in a vacuum. National teams are not private clubs, they are symbols of statehood. They have flags, chants and are part of fabric of soft power positioning. When Iran plays their opening Group G game against New Zealand in Los Angeles (June 16), it is not just 11 footballers who step foot into SoFi Stadium. It is the Islamic Republic being granted a huge public stage in which to ‘sportswash’ their barbarism and support of terrorist proxies.

 The Trump administration is being strangely selective in this regard. If a man from Somalia can be refused entry on security grounds, namely a relatively uncontroversial and respected football referee, Omar Artan, why is the Iranian regime and their players deemed as administratively acceptable?

 There is also the case of precedent. Through history, numerous events show that sport drew lines. The defeated Central Powers, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, were refused the invitation to the 1920 Antwerp Olympics after the First World War. Germany and Japan were excluded from the 1948 London Olympics after the Second World War. In 1992, UN sanctions connected with the Balkan wars forced Yugoslavia out of the UEFA European Football Championship, with Denmark subsequently taking their place winning the entire tournament. More recently, Russia was rightly removed from FIFA and UEFA tournaments after its illegal invasion of Ukraine.

 It surely should be the case that the historic precent and principle should remain consistent for Iran. When a state is judged to have crossed a serious international line, sport should not provide sanctuary. Considering the American military’s justified campaign against Iran, and its robust sanctions regime against the country, why was Uncle Sam unwilling to challenge Iran’s World Cup participation and deny visa access to its entire team, just as the State Department had done for Omar Artan?

 The White House could have understandably made the case that no country actively at war with a host nation should play one match on American soil. If the exclusion of Iran had happened, as many anticipated it would have, there would have been instant speculation about who should replace them. Italy might have been a possibility, following their failed qualification.

 While of course Iranian football players and supporters are not necessarily synonymous with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, it should not negate the realpolitik and reality of Iran being able showcase itself at the most watched sporting tournament in the world. While FIFA should have been challenged in the first place to ban Iran just as it did Russia, the more immediate and profound question is why the Trump administration failed to simply deny the Iranian team entry into the US.

 The World Cup will go on, the stadiums will be full, television viewers will be vast, and it is no doubt a matter of American pride that it is co-hosting the world’s most beautiful game. It is also hosting a geopolitical paradox of its own making.

 The case is simple. Iran should not be handed football’s greatest stage while it wages war beyond it. 

 mr khg