When taking a stand has a point
The political stand taken by the footballers in Qatar as the World Cup got under way was remarkable and courageous. We refer not to England or Wales, whose captains had planned to wear armbands showing solidarity with gay people only to cave in under pressure from the Fifa governing body. We are talking about Iran.
They represent a country where real oppression is taking place and where making a political statement is dangerous, unlike wearing an armband or the ludicrous “taking the knee” gesture, neither of which have consequences but are intended to show that the advocate cares.
In the event, the England team’s moral posturing against Qatar’s repression extended only to the point where they feared Harry Kane might end up with a yellow card, risking his future participation if he received another.
The Iranian players, by contrast, risk far more than that. Protests in their homeland have taken place for months after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman arrested by the morality police in Tehran for not wearing a headscarf.
A crackdown by the theocratic state has left 378 people dead, including 44 children, according to the Iran Human Rights group. If the England players wanted to make a political stand, they should have done so in support of the women of Iran. That country’s players declined to sing their own national anthem while their fans booed it. The team was well beaten but the players could be forgiven for having other things on their minds. As Ehsan Hajsafi, Iran’s captain, said: “The conditions in our country are not right and our people are not happy.”
Those comments could well mean he cannot go home. If he does, he may face the wrath of the Islamic state’s rulers. Scores of sportsmen and women, celebrities and journalists have been rounded up in a campaign of mass arrests against public figures who have supported the protests.
While Qatar’s attitude to homosexuality and women is unacceptable in the West, this was known long before the teams agreed to go there. If they felt so strongly, why did they not boycott it? But the country that was more worthy of their indignation was Iran, whose government is also helping to arm Russia, which is banned from the World Cup because of its invasion of Ukraine. Why, in that case, is Iran allowed to take part? The double standards are breathtaking.