• Russia drew 1-1 with Iran in an international friendly in Tehran on Thursday
• The nation is banned from Euro 2024 by UEFA following the invasion of Ukraine
• Iran hosted the match amid ongoing protests against the country’s regime
Writers for TASS, Russia’s state-owned news agency, had struggled to make up their mind. They referred to Thursday night’s meeting with Iran as a ‘friendly’. And also an ‘exhibition’. Neither quite fit. Neither quite captured the core of this international clash of outcasts. Nothing rolls off the tongue, in fairness. But how about… a disgrace? Or an exhibition of football’s grubby relationship with politics and pariahs and morals?
The sport lost as soon as this game kicked off. As soon as two teams, representing two countries piling misery on to fear and destruction, were allowed to organise a kickabout. For those interested, it ended in Tehran: Iran 1-1 Russia. Invaders pegged back by ‘Morality Police’ State?
We await the final score of crimes against humanity. Both these nations are racking up accusations, after all.
And yet, Russia won’t have to wait long for another run-out. Iraq are their visitors on Sunday. Good question.
Valery Karpin’s side have been banned from UEFA and FIFA competitions following the invasion of Ukraine. At TASS, they call it the ‘situation’. We know it better as a 13-month assault on a neighbouring democracy. Since protests erupted in Iran last September, meanwhile, reports of murder, imprisonment, disappearance, torture and rape have followed. Security forces stand accused of firing on unarmed children; kids are said to have described sexual abuse and electric shocks; a wave of suspected poisonings has struck schoolgirls.
