TEHRAN- Since September 2022, the Guardian newspaper has been covering one-sided and untrue news of the protests in Iran surrounding the death of Mahsa Amini.

For example, in an article on November 13, 2022, the writer, Simon Tisdall, raised numerous baseless and untrue accusations about the Islamic Republic of Iran and its leaders, which are the source of chronic and biased miscalculations of Western analysts about the Iranian society.

In his article the British analyst writes:

“Now, pressed into action by this murderous regime, Iran’s national football team is about to play England, Wales and the US in the 2022 World Cup – as if nothing untoward were happening. This is not OK. In truth, it’s shameful.”

What is the reason for the author's anger?

11 months ago, Tisdall also wrote another article in the Guardian titled "Nothing can stop Iran’s World Cup heroes. Except war, of course…"

A careful study of the article in the Guardian’s archive of November 21, 2021, can show the depth of concern of the newspaper and the author about Iran's sports power, so military option to restrain Iranian footballers and threatening to deprive Iranians of their rights in the nuclear negotiations is discussed in the article in a clever way.

The concern of the Guardian, which almost a year ago caused a politicization of the sports environment and used this tactic indirectly to threaten Iran and Iranian negotiators, along with today’s support for rioters by Western politicians demonstrate double-standards exercised  by the West in using sports for political purposes. Since the declining global powers are seeking goals that cannot be realized through war, they are desperately trying to materialize them through turmoil, terror, and intimidation in Iran.

When sport becomes a tool in the hand of power!

Although the constant slogan of sports is to separate it from politics, it seems that sports has also become a pressure tool to advance politics through political approaches.

The influence Westerners on international forums and various sports institutions, such as the World Olympic Association and FIFA, has caused the issue of sports to quickly become a tool to put pressure on independent countries and oppose the unilateralist policies of Western powers. This is an issue that has been mentioned by Simon Tisdall in his November 13 article in the Guardian in which he wrote “Given its history of corruption and racketeering, the idea of FIFA handing out ‘moral lessons’ to anyone is laughable.”

The use of sport as a tool to put pressure on countries has happened many times in recent decades, the most recent example of which occurred after the Russian military attack on Ukraine, when many world bodies and federations, including the IOC, imposed sanctions against Russia and its athletes.

This political campaign to pressure independent countries through sports was also supposed to take place in the case of Iran's participation in the World Cup, which was not successful.

Claiming that Russia used Iran-made drones in its latest wave of attacks against Ukraine, the West asked FIFA to remove Iran from the Qatar World Cup.

This is while Iran has said it has not sold drones to Russia to be used against Ukraine, and that these limited number of drones had been given to Russia long before the Ukraine war.

The Telegraph, quoting Chris Bryant, a member of the British Parliament, also said: “World sports organizations in every field should be careful about Iran's direct support and interference with Putin's government. Such countries should not be given the opportunity to participate in sports events.”

But these countries seem to have forgotten that during Saddam Hussein's war against Iran in the 1980s, according to UN documents, provided knowledge and materials necessary for building non-conventional weapons (chemical arms) to Iraq. 150 companies, most of them from Western countries, including West Germany, the United States, France, etc., were involved in arming Saddam Hussein with such arsenal.

France, the so-called champion of human rights, was the first Western country to open its arms to elements from the terrorist Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK), while they have killed thousands of Iranian people, including more than 100 senior officials.

It's not better to see what's up in your country?!

They also accuse Iran of suppressing protesters during the unrest in Iran, and for this reason, they wanted to remove the Iranian national football team from the World Cup.

In his first press conference in Qatar, Carlos Queiroz, head coach of Iran's national team, answered the question of the English Sky Sports reporter about the reason for working for a country that, according to them, does not respect women's rights. In response, Queiroz, a Portuguese national, said, “It's not better to see what's up in your country?!”.

Yes! It's better that the reporter of Sky Sports be reminded about the historical memory of the British people of the story of Sarah Everard's death, which caused a wave of anger and fear, and social protests in the British society. Sarah Everard, a young British girl, was kidnapped by a police officer and killed after being sexually assaulted.

The separation of politics from sports is clearly stated in the Olympic Charter and various sports regulations. But apparently, the separation of sports from politics, like the rest of the universal values written by the Western powers, is not absolute! Rather, for the world powers, sports is a tool to advance political goals, in a situation where the rest of the countries have no right to cross this red line. The question is: has such deterrent actions been taken so far for the warring parties in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and Yemen?