FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafström called Saturday's meeting with the Iranian Football Federation in Istanbul "very constructive." He said he couldn't wait to welcome the Islamic Republic of Iran to the World Cup.
Team Melli is one of the most politically controlled national squads on the planet, operating under the tight grip of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps © Mena Today
FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafström called Saturday's meeting with the Iranian Football Federation in Istanbul "very constructive." He said he couldn't wait to welcome the Islamic Republic of Iran to the World Cup.
How reassuring.
Because what Grafström is welcoming is not just a football team. Team Melli is one of the most politically controlled national squads on the planet, operating under the tight grip of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a body designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States, the very country co-hosting this tournament.
Some players maintain documented ties to Iranian security services. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is an open secret that FIFA has chosen, once again, to ignore.
This is the organisation that handed Qatar a World Cup despite its appalling human rights record, that kept Russia in competitions long after it should have been banned, and that has perfected the art of issuing carefully worded statements while doing absolutely nothing of substance.
Grafström's enthusiasm is not naive. It is calculated. Iran's participation means broadcast rights, sponsorship deals, ticket sales and the carefully maintained fiction that football truly is a game above politics. It is not. It never was. And FIFA knows it better than anyone.
The absurdity on the ground
Iran will set up its base camp in Tucson, Arizona - on American soil - under the protection of a country that has sanctioned the very institutions controlling this football federation. On June 15, they open against New Zealand in Los Angeles. Belgium on June 21. Egypt on June 26 in Seattle.
The logistics of hosting a squad with deep ties to the IRGC on US territory, in the middle of an ongoing conflict involving Iran, appear to concern FIFA not one bit. There are no hard questions. No conditions. Just a warm communiqué and a promise to "work closely together."
Asked hard questions. Demanded guarantees. Insisted on the independence of players from political and security apparatus. Acknowledged, at minimum, the contradiction of hosting a team controlled by a sanctioned military organisation in a country at war with that organisation's state.
Instead: "very constructive."
FIFA has once again chosen the easy path, and dressed it up as diplomacy.
The World Cup begins in weeks. The questions it refuses to ask will not disappear simply because the football has started.
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