European Teams Not So Friendly Towards Iran

While FIFA has rebuked calls by some members of Germany’s parliament to ban Iran from the World Cup for its president’s remarks regarding Israel and the Holacust, some European countries have reportedly declined requests to play Iran in friendly matches leading up to the World Cup.

Romania has cancelled a scheduled friendly against Iran after being pressured by its foreign ministry and no other Iranian matches have been announced.

The Iranians are putting a good spin on this by claiming that friendly matches could not be fixed due to the national team’s probable participation in the Asian championship ahead of the World Cup. But clearly we are seeing politics injecting itself into the sports world.

FIFA has taken the approach of separating sports from politics. Other countries should follow FIFA’s lead, but I won’t be holding my breath waiting for this to happen any time soon.