Why Iran loves Zidane

It's not very timely to post this. but this what I wrote for the Guardian last week on Iranian populaists and Zidane:

Why Iran loves Zidane (The Guardian)

By Hossein Derakhshan

Outspoken presidents and oil are not the only things Iran and Latin America have in common. There's also football. Which is why the head of the external relations committee of the Iranian parliament, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, has sent a letter to Zinédine Zidane, congratulating him for his "logical" reaction and "timely" defence against insult to his "humane and Islamic" identity. This, in case you missed it, refers to the exchange in the World Cup final last Sunday between the French national team's captain, and Marco Materazzi, which saw the Italian defender mutter something and Zidane react with his head.

Where Boroujerdi led, Kayhan, a radical hardline newspaper and a strong supporter of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad followed. It ran with Zidane on its frontpage, using two big pictures of the infamous headbutt. The headline read: "Zidane's proud farewell - The best player of the World Cup defended his Islamic identity."

The Iranian MP and Kayhan probably don't know that Zidane calls himself a non-practising Muslim and is married to a scarfless, non-Muslim dancer from Spain who has borne him four boys, none with an Islamic name. Nor did they know exactly what went on between the two players. But even if they did, it wouldn't change much. Football is so popular in Iran that the newly elected president likes to use it on any possible occasion to expand his influence among the masses.

Before Iran left for Germany for the World Cup, Ahmadinejad showed up at one of the exercise sessions, with the national jersey and football boots, and kicked a ball with the national team players. His shooting and dribbling skills and his lecture to the players, wishing them success similar to that of the other young Iranians who are driving Iran's nuclear programme, were widely covered by the local media. So was the photo-op later with captain Ali Daei who gave the president a jersey with number 24 on it.

It was the first time an Iranian president had done such a thing, most likely because all previous incumbents were clerics who found it insulting to appear in public with sportsmen's clothes rather than their sacred cloths.

Earlier this year, Ahmadinejad famously decided to rescind a long-standing ban on women in football grounds and ordered his deputy for sports to reserve the best seats for women so that they could also enjoy the games along with their families.

But critics were suspicious. Ahmadinejad's order was soon reversed by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamanei, and some analysts say the president was expecting this: that he knew all along that the religious establishment would oppose his decision, but his gesture to the large number of young women in the population would position him as a victim of religious fanaticism.

This in fact reveals a truth about Ahmadinejad. He is not a fundamentalist, he is a populist. And football just happens to be a very effective way of reaching the masses.
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