From a superficial perspective, soccer is another game, but anyone who follows the industry understands that it is much more than 90 minutes of running after the ball.
The teams represent long-standing identities that the fans connect with, and the field is a "Mimic War" between the different camps.
Football teams can represent a social class (Al-Zamalech represents the Egyptian elite), a workers' organization (Manchester United was founded by the workers of the local railway station) or a political camp (Beitar Jerusalem of the revisionists). This is the case all over the world, and so it is in the Islamic Republic. of Iran.
Political capital and sports have always gone together.
And in 1979, after the Islamic revolution, the new regime also appropriated football and began to shape it in its image.
In 2008, the management of the Iranian Football Association approved the "Ethical and Behavioral Code of Football".
Among the other goals of this code, which is based on the principles of the Islamic-Iranian constitution, was defined the need to "strengthen the unity around the national identity of the young people in accordance with the ideals of Islamic Iran... and use it as a suitable infrastructure for the growth and development of the public, moral and behavioral culture of the millions interested in football ".
The goal of the Islamic regime was to subordinate football to its principles.
But as Maradona said, "Football is neither a game nor a sport - it is a religion", and in Muslim-Shiite Iran football has a separate status.
In the 1980s, during the Iran-Iraq war, when the league was closed due to the regime's fear of mass gatherings that would lead to demonstrations, district and neighborhood leagues were established.
In October 2016, when an important match between Iran and South Korea for promotion to the World Cup in Russia (2018) was scheduled for Ashuraa - the holiest religious day in the Shiite world - the Iranian regime fell into a trap.
On the one hand, the values of Islam to which it aspires stood;
On the other hand, the crowd's admiration for soccer and the chance to qualify for the World Cup.
Some Iranian parliamentarians, who understood the power of football, warned that a conservative religious approach, calling for the abolition of the game, could lead to a war between Islam and football.
Their fear was that the price that the conflict would take would be too heavy from several aspects: social - protest and bloody riots;
Sports - a technical loss and fatal injury to the possibility of qualifying for the World Cup;
and international - fines from FIFA and criticism from the international community. Considering profit and loss, Iran's Supreme National Security Council (no less!) allowed the team to play.
Morality prevails over fear
Iranian football also knows how to take sides in political issues.
In June 2009, while the "green protest" raged amid accusations of rigging the presidential elections, six players showed up for a match against the South Korean national team with green ribbons on their arms, as a symbol of support for the opposition and a protest against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rule.
Following the murder of the young Mehsa Amini last month, when the socio-political protest in Iran spread through the streets, it quickly moved to the soccer fields as well, with an emphasis on the national team.
It started with the blacking out of the profile pictures of eight of the national team's players as a sign of solidarity with the protest, moved to postings on social media against the regime, and continued when last Tuesday in Vienna, as part of a preparatory match against Senegal for the World Cup in Qatar, the players of the Iranian national team went up to sing the national anthems wearing black tracksuits that hide all insignia or a national symbol.
It was an unprecedented step.
The players consciously took a huge risk, because they had a lot to lose - removal from the national team, financial damage and of course damage to their families.
For many in Iran and abroad, the protest of the national team players was the signal to increase the intensity of the protest.
Indeed, in recent days thousands of students have taken to the streets to rekindle the protests.
The escalation led to arrests and violent clashes: so far about 90 people have been killed, hundreds of others have been injured, and many thousands have been arrested by the security forces.
Also, if until now the regime avoided harming Iranian celebrities, now everything is allowed.
The security forces started a wave of arrests of singers, actors, athletes and journalists who dared to raise their voice and protest.
Hussein Mahini, a player for the Saifa team and a former national team player, was among the first arrested and charged with "supporting and encouraging the riots on social media."
In an attempt to stop the encroachment, the governor of the Tehran district, Mohsen Mansouri, issued a threat that the authorities would "take action against the celebrities who ignited the flames of the riots".
But the dam was breached, and instead of the soccer league players, including the national team players, complying with the rules of the association's ethical code, they decided to follow another code - their own ethical code.
In the last round of the league, nine players from the top Persepolis team took to the field with black ribbons out of respect and identification with the protesters.
The team lost 1:0, but received praise for the courage to protest.
"The players simply cannot concentrate on football anymore, because the situation in the country is not normal," said Yahya Golhammadi, the team's coach, in response to the loss.
Apart from the black tape protest, what caught the eye at the game was the absence of the crowd.
At the order of the authorities, the round of games of the two teams leading the Premier League, Persepolis and Estekalal Tehran, took place without an audience to prevent the gathering from being used for demonstrations as part of the hijab protest.
The next round of the league will also take place mostly without an audience, especially the games in the Iranian capital.
Will they use the biggest stage?
It is likely that the demonstrations will not maintain a high level of intensity and they may even know.
But both the Iranian people and their leaders have their eyes on their neighbor to the south - Qatar.
On November 20, the World Cup will open there, the biggest sporting stage in the world, which in recent years has attracted fire against the background of the hosts' attitude to human rights.
Whether or not the Iranian regime succeeds in suppressing the hijab protest, it is clear to everyone that the Iranian opposition, both local and diaspora, will use the games to draw world attention to what is happening in Iran.
Since the match against Senegal, the regime has put a tight watch on the players of the national team.
There is a restriction on interviews of actors and crew members, and if these are held in front of female journalists they are obliged to wear a hijab.
Also, close supervision was attached to the players, including a virtual supervision team responsible for their postings on social networks, all this so that they would not initiate further protest measures.
When the country hosting the World Cup is at the center of the question of human rights violations;
When the goal of the Iranian protest is "freedom, justice and human dignity";
And when the players of the Iranian national team are on the field, and serve as a symbol and example for millions of women and men in their country - in the eyes of the audience, there is no better platform to leverage the hijab protest to another level.
And so sport, and football in particular, becomes a political tool not only in the hands of regimes but also in the hands of their opponents.
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Dr. Belanga - an expert on Syria and Egypt, and studies the influence of football in the Middle East in the Department of Middle East Studies at Bar-Ilan University
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