sport news SPECIAL REPORT: Iran are in chaos ahead of the World Cup as unrests grows in ... trends now
It really should not happen to a former Real Madrid manager and one-time assistant to Sir Alex Ferguson but Carlos Queiroz was laying out the cones for an Iran training session in an obscure Vienna suburb last Thursday afternoon, having played a part in heading off a diplomatic incident.
The session, for a team who beat Uruguay 1-0 in a World Cup warm-up the following night, seemed to bring pleasure to a 69-year-old who has been re-hired to stop the rot in the Iran national side — even though he is being paid a mere £50,000 for a four-month contract which expires after the World Cup. His six coaches are on less than £30,000 between them.
The diplomatic role is trickier, given that Iran is in the midst of huge and escalating public protest after the death in custody of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the state’s morality police for allegedly improperly wearing a hijab and headscarf. Football worries the Iranian state because the nation’s football players have a habit of speaking their minds.
After Amini’s death, Alireza Jahanbakhsh, captain of Queiroz’s national team, posted an image of a young woman with her arms raised toward a flock of doves. Ehsan Hajsafi, who was also in the starting XI against Uruguay, published something similar. Both appear to have been forced to delete the posts, which mysteriously vanished.
Against this backdrop, The Mail on Sunday arrived here last Wednesday to find we were among several western media organisations to have had our accreditation for the game withdrawn — on the orders of the Iranian state, according to several sources. The game was already to be played behind closed doors at the insistence of the Iranians, who were technically the hosts.
Our subsequent approach to the Iranian FC vice-president Mahdi Mohammadnabi, at the team hotel, revealed just how terrified officials are about taking any step that the state apparatus might disapprove of. Mohammadnabi, a shambling figure in a shabby coat and cheap training gear, said nothing to us or Persian-speaking colleagues, apart from refusing us access to Queiroz.
Iranians have been protesting after Mahsa Amini was arrested by the state’s morality police
Iran boss Carlos Queiroz was spotted laying out the markers for training session for his team
The manager then emerged from a hotel dining area to say he would speak beside the training pitch to the few reporters present. This appeared to be a test of whether there were enemies in Iran’s midst. Within 18 hours our accreditation was mysteriously restored. Threats of having to surrender mobile phones never materialised.
Queiroz appears to have the power to act as de-facto independent foreign envoy for Iran and maintain a semblance of credibility for its hapless FA. He is not afraid to speak because he does not live in fear of the state, as the FA officials do. He does not have a family in Iran to worry about. The Iranian state badly need him, too, though as yet Queiroz has gone nowhere towards commenting on the treatment of women such as Amini.
Iran seem to have thought that protest would never follow them to St Polten, a sleepy town 50 miles west of Vienna where this surreal match took place.
But dissent stalked the place. Around 150
