FIFA is a Thief-a: Suspends Iran

It is a hypocritical and farcical state of affairs in Europe wherein they will engage in all sorts and ranges of business relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran yet will freely castigate Iran via the statutes of major European-based international institutions, i.e. the UN and FIFA. If the Islamic Republic of Iran is so bad (which it is), then why is Europe willing to overlook that when it comes to profit? And why does Iran allow itself to be played the fool in such a way?

Beyond the comedy of the UN nuclear stand-off with Iran, today we have a new item on the checklist of European hypocrisy toward Iran: FIFA, the international soccer/football federation which is based in Europe has announced that Iran is officially suspended from the organization since it failed to meet a November 15th deadline to follow a prescribed course of rules which FIFA demands, including the return of Iranian soccer federation president Mohammad Dadkan.

Officially, FIFA says that it has suspended the Iranian team because of "government interference in football matters." And as usual, the completely powerless President Ahmadinejad who is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the regime, has been at the center of accusations. The same thing has happened recently to Greece and to Kenya for the same reasons. But as we all know, in all of the nations where soccer/football is one of the major national sports, government interference goes without saying. So what is this really all about?

Well, first off, it's about sheer contempt: FIFA has suspended Iran just one week after Iran successfully qualified for the Asian Cup 2007.

But mostly, this is about a power struggle: Iran doesn't like to be dictated to and FIFA doesn't like insubordination or even the suggestion of it: Iran has been very open about its interests in controlling as much as possible of the administration of Iran's team within FIFA and FIFA doesn't like the sound of that, especially since they are quite keen on Dadkan and the IRI is not.

What will be the end result? Iran will not have been dictated to. FIFA will have exerted its power. Then Iran will follow the rules. FIFA will accept. Iran will be back in the game. It's playground stuff folks, but as we all know, it ain't easy growin' up!