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Iranians in Pittsburgh focused more on politics than goals in World Cup

Tim Weah of the United States, left, is challenged by Iran's Milad Mohammadi during the World Cup group B soccer match between Iran and the United States at the Al Thumama Stadium in Doha, Qatar, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2022.
Ricardo Mazalan
/
AP
Tim Weah of the United States, left, is challenged by Iran's Milad Mohammadi during the World Cup group B soccer match between Iran and the United States at the Al Thumama Stadium in Doha, Qatar, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2022.

Back in 1997, Iran’s soccer team was the last team to earn a spot in the World Cup, and Ali Shourideh, an associate professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon, remembers celebrating the team’s victory over Australia as a symbol of the country opening up. At the time, he was 17 and just cast his first vote for a progressive Iranian president who vowed to open up a dialogue with outside countries.

But Shourideh said he is cheering for the U.S. national soccer team in their match against Iran because he worried that if the Iranian team won, the government would have used the win as propaganda for the Iranian regime.

“They're going to be able to mobilize their supporters for the fact that we have a national team that has made history,” he said. “They are going to create a little bit of a sense of despair about the sort of silent opposition who are not necessarily going out and protesting on the streets. But they do support the protests.”

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The Iranian Student Association of Pittsburgh planned six months ago to watch the World Cup match today at Carnegie Mellon. But according to a civil engineering graduate student at Pitt who didn’t want to use her name because she fears repercussions when she returns to Iran, the group canceled the event after some of its members became upset with the Iranian team for not showing enough support for protesters in Iran.

When the protests in Iran started after the death of Masha Amini in September, the student's father closed his shop in Tehran. Neither of her parents are able to protest and, in fact, avoid going out at night during protests because so many bystanders have been shot, she said. She has had trouble reaching her parents, as the Iranian government has limited how Iranians can use the internet.

So the student is supporting the United States. “This is not Iran's national team,” she said. “This is the Islamic Republic national team.”

The student has been involved in three protests in Pittsburgh: One Downtown, one at Pitt’s campus and one at Carnegie Mellon. She also attended the unveiling of a mural of Amini in Troy Hill.

Ali Shourideh watches the World Cup game between the United States and Iran at his home in Squirrel Hill.
Jillian Forstadt
/
90.5 WESA
Ali Shourideh watches the World Cup game between the United States and Iran at his home in Squirrel Hill.

Iran’s players did refuse to sing the national anthem before its match against England. And some news reports have suggested that the Iranian government threatened players and their families if they didn’t show support for the government. The student acknowledges the pressure the government puts on the players but said the players could have shown support back in Iran before the team left for Qatar. And, after it scored and won its game against Wales, they could have shown support for protesters by not celebrating.

“That's not something acceptable from people because we are all mourning,” she said. “15,000 people have been arrested. More than 500, more than 700 have been killed on the streets. So it’s not something we as a nation could be happy about.”

Elyanna Sharbaji, the president of the Middle East and North African Student Association, grew up in Syria and blames the Iranian government for propping up its government for a decade. She remembers it was Iranian forces who were arming security checkpoints back in 2012 when she was still in Syria. She felt conflicted about who to support. “I want that Iranian team to win. But at the same time, their presence here there at Qatar with the support of the Iranian regime is not what I want,” she said.

In the long run, she said, if there is a regime change in Iran, she thinks people will look back and see the Iran team’s performance as a win for the people of Iran not for its government. She planned to watch the game with an Iranian friend and said they would be looking for signs from either team that they supported protesters in Iran.

Shourideh said Iran’s success early in the World Cup could lead to more support for Iranian protesters. But during the match against the United States he worried about its repercussions back home.

“We are all kind of grieving,” he said. “And this grief sort of makes it harder to cheer for a football match.”

Corrected: November 29, 2022 at 9:14 PM EST
A student's name was removed to prevent identifying information about her.
Corrected: November 29, 2022 at 5:21 PM EST
Corrected spelling of Shourideh
Oliver Morrison is a general assignment reporter at WESA. He previously covered education, environment and health for PublicSource in Pittsburgh and, before that, breaking news and weekend features for the Wichita Eagle in Kansas.