Parliament’s Plan to Prohibit Competitions Between Iranian and Israeli Athletes

Representatives of Iran’s Islamic Consultative Assembly approved two emergency provisions of a bill to “counter Israel’s hostile measures” against regional and international peace and security. Based on this bill, competitions between Iranian and Israeli athletes will also be formally prohibited.

In the open session on Tuesday (May 13) of Iran’s Islamic Consultative Assembly, two emergency provisions of a bill to counter Israel’s “hostile measures” against regional and international peace and security were on the agenda and were reviewed.

The bill faced no opposition from any assembly representatives, and accordingly, its two emergency provisions were approved.

Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, has asked the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission to expedite the review of this bill so that it can be placed on the agenda of the open session of parliament early next week.

The bill comprises a total of 14 articles that include prohibitions, penalties, complaints, and sanctions against Israel, with the majority of them related to political issues.

One of these 14 articles, however, is devoted to the issue of sporting competitions between Iranian and Israeli athletes.

According to Article 11 of this emergency bill, the holding of any sports competition or event, whether official or preparatory, between Iranian athletes and sports teams with Israeli opponents is prohibited.

In this article, each sports federation of the Islamic Republic is specifically required to, “by utilizing all internal and international capacities and establishing principled communication with international sports bodies, adopt appropriate measures and actions to prevent any international sports sanctions and bans against athletes who refrain from competing” with Israeli opponents.

Furthermore, the federations are asked to “provide encouragement and support to athletes by allocating necessary resources.”

The Risk of Iran Sports Suspension

The inclusion of this article in the aforementioned bill comes at a time when the International Judo Federation suspended all of Iran’s international judo activities in September of last year (2019) to pressure Islamic Republic officials over the forced losses of Iranian judokas against Israeli opponents.

The Islamic Consultative Assembly’s step toward formally prohibiting Iranian athletes from competing with Israeli athletes is an overt interference of politics in sports; something that is unacceptable according to the standards and resolutions of international sports federations.

Refusal to compete for political reasons is prohibited under the rules of the International Olympic Committee and all world federations.

This is while the issue of facing Israeli opponents has affected many sports disciplines. Iranian athletes have so far been forced to avoid competing with Israeli rivals or lose in previous rounds due to “illness,” “sudden injury,” “weight problems,” and similar reasons, so as not to face an Israeli opponent, even in cases where they claimed victory and dealt with an unknown rival.

The most recent case, which is scheduled to be reviewed in September of this year at an international body (the Court of Arbitration for Sport based in Switzerland), is the deliberate loss of Saeid Mollaei in the 2019 World Judo Championships.

Saeid Mollaei, a 28-year-old world judo champion who was among the favorites to win gold, revealed after his deliberate defeat in those games that the head of Iran’s National Olympic Committee and Iran’s Deputy Sports Minister had telephoned him asking him to lose in the semi-final so he would not be forced to compete against an Israeli judoka in the final.

This incident ultimately led to this professional athlete’s decision not to return to Iran and his request for asylum from Germany, and eventually to the exposure of this scandal.

At the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland, along with Saeid Mollaei, Vahid Saroukhani has also been summoned as a witness.

Vahid Saroukhani witnessed the details of this event firsthand at the 2019 World Judo Championships in Japan.

Now there is a danger that if the emergency bill “countering Israel’s hostile measures” is finally approved in parliament, the issue of suspension of sporting activities may grip other sports disciplines and, in the worst case, Iran’s entire sports involvement in international competitions could be suspended. The Tokyo Olympics, which will be held in Tokyo next year, will be one of these competitions.

Source: DW