Ban Iran from the World Cup?

[longshot]

My only request is that there be no, "Soccer Sucks, go ping pong!" posts. This isn't serious enough to put in the politics folder, but I'd like it somewhat focused.

My opinion:

It's gotta happen. Ban these assholes. Iran should not be allowed to go. The world needs to stand up to theocratic facist Islamic bullshit.

Article is from Reuters below.

What do you think?

BERLIN, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Former West German international midfielder Wolfgang Overath suggested on Friday Iran should be banned from the 2006 World Cup finals because of a call by Iran's president to move Israel to Europe.

Overath, the president of Bundesliga club Cologne and a member of West Germany's 1974 World Cup winning team, said FIFA should consider banning Iran due to the remarks from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that have sparked widespread condemnation.

"Such comments from a head of state are really grounds enough to exclude a country," Overath said in an interview on German television ahead of Friday's World Cup draw in Leipzig.

Iran is one 32 countries that have qualified for the tournament.

The Iranian president also suggested that the Holocaust might not have happened at a news conference in the Saudia Arabian city of Mecca that followed his call in October for Israel to be "wiped off the map".

In Berlin, the German Foreign Ministry said it had summoned Iran's ambassador to protest against the remarks.

Historians say six million Jews were killed in the Nazi Holocaust.

Iran's official news agency IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying of the Nazi Holocaust: "Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces..."

"Although we don't accept this claim, if we suppose it is true, our question for the Europeans is: is the killing of innocent Jewish people by Hitler the reason for their support to the occupiers of Jerusalem?" he said.

"If the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces in Europe -- like in Germany, Austria or other countries -- to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe."

Overath scored 17 goals in 81 matches for West Germany between 1963 and 1974. As well as winning the World Cup in 1974 he also played in the 1966 final which the Germans lost to England.

[Nieninque]

If countries were banned because someone representing them said something stupid, Sepp Blatter would have seen his Country banned from anything for the next 300 years.

[Lomoriond]

If it walks like a hardliner, and it talks like a hardliner....

Just got done with an eastern film and lit class that dedicated several weeks to Israel and all that gooey shittiness. And several weeks was about twenty years too few to really get the slightest understanding of all of thats going on there.

Is it fair to ban Iran for publicly voicing their concern that Muslim land (and holy land at that) was taken by a foreign power and handed to the Jewish people? It's not like thats a NEW tune he's singing...

I'm not taking sides in the argument of who the land belongs too... but after all these years of displacement, there's probably a boiling point that has been reached.

Personally... I think it all started going back to hell when Ahmadinejad declared Israel should be wiped off the face of the map and 300 suicide bombers showed up on his doorstep the very next day willing to aid that very idea.

Thank god I'm a cushy fat-ass white boy from bumblefuck washington who doesn't have to worry about whether or not my bus is going to blow up when I get downtown...

Then again... I just know what i've been fed by american propaganda... I am a white devil and proud of it.

[Tsa`ah]

Such a move would be complete bullshit.

Imagine if the USSR had boycotted the winter Olympics that took place in our front lawn ... Kurt Russell would have one less acting credit.

These games are not about politics, nor should they ever be. They are about athletes competing against each other for the chance to be called the best in the world for one year.

If they qualified, let them play. Banning them from attending just furthers the bull shit claims made by leaders of predominate shit holes.

Maybe, just maybe, if this shit didn't come up at every turn of the corner, the Muslim world start questioning their leadership when they demonize the outside world. The greatness of a nation should never rest on the shoulders of it's athletes, but the athletes have a chance to become ambassadors.

Maybe one of these days our leaders will settle disputes over a game of ping pong, or something far less idiotic than bombings and overall disregard to human rights. It won't get here when we say you can't play soccer with us because your prez is a dumb ass.

[Drew]

I'm not for it, but I have the feeling that if you did ban them, it would probably be the most effective sanction in our arsenal.

[xtc]

Each country is free to self determination, Iran is a theocracy.

If stupid statements of a nation's leader were enough to get a country banned from the World Cup, Canada would have a shot at winning.

If the man was suggesting a replay of the Munich Olympics in 1972 that would be another story. Speaking of which has anyone noticed that Spielberg is doing a film about it?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0408306/

[Asha]

<< If they qualified, let them play. Banning them from attending just furthers the bull shit claims made by leaders of predominate shit holes. >>

Would you let Zimbabwe back into the commonwealth games?
I have no straight stance on this, before you think I would not.

[TheEschaton]

G.W. doesn't believe in evolution, which is a threat against all rational people in the world (a somewhat larger population than Jews, I would reckon), and yet we're still allowed to play.

And the comments about the Holocaust, while incorrect (no one can deny fact), do ask a question which people on the Palestinian side of the Israel-Palestine conflict have always asked: What is the rational of defending a state (like Israel) when it would normally condemn it, based on its actions, if it wasn't Israel?

And the part about giving up European lands - that's priceless. What if the Americans finally decided they royally fucked over Native Americans, and decided to give them their own nation. And then placed said nation in, say, China, since all Native Americans once came over the land bridge from Asia oh-so-long ago, without asking the Chinese? Wouldn't fly. Therefore, why do Europeans get to plop down the Jewish homeland in a place where Jews hadn't been in power for millenia? It is their holyland, but it's many other people's holyland too, y'know.

-TheE-

[DeV]

It's especially detrimental to the athletes when sport becomes mixed with politics. It happens I know, but it still sucks. When a nations leader uses his country's accomplishment as a global stage for making ridiculous and insulting political statements, does that mean the players and citizens should suffer the consequences?

Personally, I think they should be allowed to play simply because their team qualified. Had the atheletes themselves made those statements I'd think very differently.

[Skirmisher]

Originally posted by DeV
Personally, I think they should be allowed to play simply because their team qualified.


Thats about it.

[xtc]

Originally posted by Tsa`ah
Such a move would be complete bullshit.

Imagine if the USSR had boycotted the winter Olympics that took place in our front lawn ... Kurt Russell would have one less acting credit.

These games are not about politics, nor should they ever be. They are about athletes competing against each other for the chance to be called the best in the world for one year.

If they qualified, let them play. Banning them from attending just furthers the bull shit claims made by leaders of predominate shit holes.

Maybe, just maybe, if this shit didn't come up at every turn of the corner, the Muslim world start questioning their leadership when they demonize the outside world. The greatness of a nation should never rest on the shoulders of it's athletes, but the athletes have a chance to become ambassadors.

Maybe one of these days our leaders will settle disputes over a game of ping pong, or something far less idiotic than bombings and overall disregard to human rights. It won't get here when we say you can't play soccer with us because your prez is a dumb ass.

I agree with almost everything you said regarding Persia except that it is a shithole. Persia is one of the world's oldest civilizations and is rich in art, music, science & mathematics. It isn't a shit hole and shouldn't be judged by one man.

This man is not a leader of Islam, he is the leader of a nation. The more the likes of George Bush moves towards facism, the more the rest of the world follows suit.

[Edited on 12-11-2005 by xtc]

[Edited on 12-12-2005 by xtc]

[Back]

I’m torn. Going to play around with an analogy.

Lets say you are forming a team to play a game. One of the guys is just a real asshole to everyone else on the team. Do you let him play? By not letting him play you are telling him shape up to a standard and you can play with us. Nothing wrong there.

But to back out a bit, here is a nation of people not being allowed to play something that may be a serious pastime that gives them a sense of pride as a people. They elected this guy in and now he has fucked it up for all of them. They may sit back and say, hey, that guy IS an asshole and we are getting fucked because of him. Lets get someone in there who will bring back our validity on the global stage.

[Ebondale]

Ban Iran from the gene pool? What?

It wouldn't matter if Iran were banned from the World Cup or not. It still wouldn't get American ratings. :lol:

Seriously, though. Iran may be a fuck-up in terms of its relationships with other nations right now but come on... so is America. A lot of countries would argue that the United States is a terrorist state. The soccer players on Iran's team have nothing to do with the production of nuclear arms and I don't see why Iran should be banned from the World Cup tournament.

It doesn't seem quite fair.

[longshot]

Israel missed going to the final stage of European qualifying on goal differential only. Yes, they had to qualify in Europe, in the same group as France, and other strong European teams. If they played in Asia, they would have torn through the competition and likely qualified. However, because Arab nations insist on projecting hundreds of years of failure on Israel, they refuse to play there. They would not send their players to a "hostile nation". So, Israel would have to play its home matches away.

The below article makes a good point that FIFA really has no business getting involved in politics. I still think this would be an excellent oppurtinity to tell Iran to go fuck itself.

FIFA says Iran won't be excluded from World Cup despite calls from politicians

By NESHA STARCEVIC, AP Sports Writer
December 16, 2005
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- Soccer's governing body will allow Iran to play in next year's World Cup despite calls from German politicians for the Islamic nation to be banned because the country's president denies the Holocaust.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a "myth" used by Europeans as a pretext for carving out a Jewish state in the heart of the Muslim world.

Ahmadinejad's comments were denounced in Germany, which is sensitive to its Nazi past. Hitler's Nazi regime was responsible for the deaths of six million Jews in the Holocaust.

But Sepp Blatter, head of soccer's world governing body, said FIFA separates sports and politics.

"We're not going to enter into any political declarations," Blatter told The Associated Press on Friday in Tokyo, where he's attending the Club World Championship.

"There have been so many rants from heads of states, even in Europe," he said. "We in football, if we entered into such discussions, then it would be against our statutes. We are not in politics."

The calls to banish Iran from the event in Germany came mostly from the opposition Greens party, although they had been supported by parts of the media and members of the country's ruling coalition.

"A country with such a president, who is driving the country into isolation, has nothing to do at the World Cup," said Angelika Beer, a Greens member of the European Parliament.

The leader of the Greens in Germany's parliament, Volker Beck, said Iran must be shown that "this cannot go on and that it cannot remain without consequences."

Social Democrats lawmaker Swen Schulz said the president's "unbearable comments" had "endangered" Iran's participation in the World Cup.

FIFA spokesman Andreas Herren said Iran will take part in the 32-nation tournament.

"FIFA strictly separates sports from politics," he said.

Earlier this week, Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said: "It is a childish attitude to follow Zionist propaganda aimed at depriving the Iranian football team of its place on the pretext that Iran mixed up sports with politics."

Iran coach Branko Ivankovic stressed that "a time to make friends" is the official World Cup motto.

"The best thing about sport is that it is completely apart from politics," Ivankovic said. "FIFA's official position has always been to ban any mixing of sports and politics."

Iran has been drawn to play Mexico, Portugal and Angola in Group D.

Yugoslavia was expelled from the 1992 European Championship following United Nations Security Council sanctions in 1992 and was prevented from entering qualifying for the 1994 World Cup. South Africa was prevented from playing international soccer games by FIFA from 1964-92 because of its apartheid policy.

Associated Press writers John Pye, Slobodan Lekic, Ariel David and Tarek Al-Issawi contributed to this report.

[ElanthianSiren]

Must resist the urge to splinter quote three posters.

I agree with Dev, Tsa'ah, Ebondale, and TheE, at least and thought the comparison of giving part of Asia to the American Indians was fairly brilliant.

Further, I feel if Iran WERE banned, it would add more fuel to their fire. Why? -Because it adds more attention to the problem.

When someone says something as ignorant and biased as "the holocaust never happened", it's better to sincerely and truthfully admonish them IMO and see if they "get it", rather than repeating yourself and upping the ante because you don't like what they've said. In the end, that makes you look like a bully and worse off than they.

-M

[Edited on Sat, December th, 2005 by ElanthianSiren]

[Daniel]

Originally posted by Lomoriond
If it walks like a hardliner, and it talks like a hardliner....

Just got done with an eastern film and lit class that dedicated several weeks to Israel and all that gooey shittiness. And several weeks was about twenty years too few to really get the slightest understanding of all of thats going on there.

Is it fair to ban Iran for publicly voicing their concern that Muslim land (and holy land at that) was taken by a foreign power and handed to the Jewish people? It's not like thats a NEW tune he's singing...

I'm not taking sides in the argument of who the land belongs too... but after all these years of displacement, there's probably a boiling point that has been reached.

Personally... I think it all started going back to hell when Ahmadinejad declared Israel should be wiped off the face of the map and 300 suicide bombers showed up on his doorstep the very next day willing to aid that very idea.

Thank god I'm a cushy fat-ass white boy from bumblefuck washington who doesn't have to worry about whether or not my bus is going to blow up when I get downtown...

Then again... I just know what i've been fed by american propaganda... I am a white devil and proud of it.

Yea, but then again you do have to worry about getting shot in the face while trying to buy a collared shirt at ambercrombie.

[Edaarin]

I wonder how the Iranian players feel.

At least our soccer team isn't 80% black. That would mean Bush only had the support of 21.6% of the support of the team.

[Gan]

Originally posted by Skirmisher

Originally posted by DeV
Personally, I think they should be allowed to play simply because their team qualified.


Thats about it.

Seconded.