US Correspondent Logan Church reports from Los Angeles ahead of New Zealand’s first FIFA match, where local Iranians told him they don’t want this game happening.
This FIFA tournament has been plagued by international politics and war, and New Zealand’s first match will be the epicentre of it.
The day before both the All Whites and Iran National Football Team arrived in LA, I met with Nasser Sharif, the President of the California Society for Democracy in Iran.
Why does such a society exist in Los Angeles, of all places?
Well, according to Pew Research, there are about 750,000 Iranians in the US, and a third of them live in the wider LA region.
He told me his ultimate goal is to try to inspire regime change inside Iran – and for Iranians to be the ones that did it, not American bombs. He left the country four decades ago.
“I was a first-year student in Tehran, but I had to flee Iran due to the government persecution,” he told me.
After fleeing, and moving through other countries, such as Turkey, he ended up in Los Angeles.
His group focus on spreading stories of people inside Iran whose voices are crushed by the regime. When they learnt Iran was going to participate in this year’s FIFA World Cup, they immediately wrote to the organisation calling for that decision to be reversed.
They didn’t receive a response.
“The Iran regime shouldn't be involved in this world cup,” he said.
“The Iranian regime is terrorising its own people – executing athletes. The FIFA, if they believe in their own standards, they should give a red card to Iran's football federation because again many athletes are in jail.”
Demonstrators killed
Earlier this year human rights groups said tens of thousands of Iranians were killed by the government during a surge of anti-regime protests.
I asked Nasser what message Iran’s inclusion sent.
“It sends the wrong the message to the international [community] as well as the Iranian people. Just during the last uprising 40,000* people were killed, and many of them were athletes,” he said.
“I love football, I play football, I watch football, but there are more important issues that need to be addressed.”
He said FIFA had already set a precedent for banning countries – noting the exclusion of South Africa first in 1961 due to its apartheid policies.
“The Iranian regime is much worse, and FIFA hasn't done anything,” he said.
“Our community and many other communities around the USA feel that this is our obligation to go out and share the story. This is not normal.”
Having spent some time with the All Whites already in the USA, publicly it’s all about the football. But behind the scenes, there will be concerns that there are large groups of people in LA that don’t want their opening match to happen.
The US government, which has been waging its own, highly controversial and unpopular war against Iran, only granted visas to the travelling players recently and refused entry to several support staff, citing concerns about terrorism.
Playing politics with sport
Iran rejected this, accusing America of playing politics with sport, and that Iran’s participating in this tournament demonstrated its desire for peace. It was a sentiment expressed by the Iran coach Amir Ghalenoei at his press conference I attended today.
“Certainly, our plan was to arrive in the United States or Mexico two weeks before the games because of the 10-hour time difference, and every hour requires a day to adjust. Because of that, we might incur some losses but thank God our players are determined to show their best quality in the first game,” he said.
“We are here to play and represent the great nation of Iran, both at home and abroad. Our sole focus is on football and on making the people of Iran happy. We are not political – after all, that’s FIFA’s very motto. Football is separate from politics.”
With large protests expected, security will be tight, as LA County Sheriff Robert Luna told Fox News.
“We have two games scheduled – at least – here with Iran. Because of all the world events, the war in the Middle East, for every game with Iran there is a little bit of a different plan that is unique to that event.”
In a world – and tournament – full of unknowns, what is certain is that this football match will be unique.
* Due to the Iranian government’s control of the media and internet, it is difficult to confirm the number of deaths during this year's protests. Estimates range from 6000 dead to 40,000.
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