With the start of the FIFA World Cup, a question has arisen among us: Does attending the matches of the Iranian national team reinforce the narrative of the Islamic Republic, or can it be an opportunity to reflect the true voice of the Iranian nation to global public opinion? It is a question that, contrary to its simple appearance, is rooted in the political and identity-driven conflicts of the Iranian nation with a regime that survives solely through the force of weapons and slaughter.

In today’s world, football is not just a sport, and the World Cup is not merely an athletic event at the level of competition between nations. In an era where media, television networks, and global digital communications play a pivotal role in connecting human beings, sports competitions—and chief among them, the FIFA World Cup—serve as one of the most critical arenas that can be utilized to influence public opinion. Therefore, since a vast majority of the world’s population watches the World Cup matches, and since the football team bearing the title of the Iranian national team has qualified for this tournament, a great opportunity has been created for us, nationalist Iranians, to use the images captured by the camera lenses as a vehicle to convey the political, cultural, and social messages of the Iranian nation.

Over the past four decades, the Islamic Republic has repeatedly attempted to turn athletic successes and the zeal of Iran’s proud youth into part of its own political capital. The widespread infiltration of governmental and security apparatuses into the country’s sports structure has ensured that the national football team has not remained immune to this process of........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)