Iran's squad face controversy in GermanyClick HERE to read
By Christian Oliver
TEHRAN, May 25 (Reuters) - Iran will probably be the subject of bitter controversy at the 2006 World Cup finals, playing in the Nazi bastion of Nuremberg only months after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad labelled the Holocaust a myth.
Many in Germany, especially Jewish community leaders obviously ultra-sensitive to the kind of remarks uttered by the president, considered trying to get Iran banned from the finals.
The idea did not carry enough strength with politicians to get far -- nor would FIFA, world soccer's governing body, realistically entertain such a motion.
Still, there is likely to be some serious opposition to the players in Germany but if the Iranians can steer clear of politics and get their manifestly talented stars to gel as a team, they stand an outside chance of being the first Iranian side to make the second round of the tournament.
[...]
Politics, however, will not go away. In response to calls for a ban on the team, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the Iranian players and their fans should not have to be penalised for their president's comments.
Iran's embassy in Berlin demanded an apology for a German newspaper cartoon showing moustachioed Iranian footballers as suicide bombers, standing for the national anthems with plastic explosives strapped round their midriffs.
German officials have admitted that Iran present a special security concern, particularly if they are accompanied by senior politicians.
The Iranian team will have to leave such disputes behind them and conquer their knack of throwing away winning positions in matches when they arrive in Germany.
"God willing, we will make Iran proud of us in the World Cup," goalkeeper Ebrahim Mirzapour said.
So the German Jewish community leaders are "obviously ultra-sensitive" to those kind of remarks saying that Israel ought to be wiped off the map and that such a marginality like the genocide of the Jews of Europe with a negligible headcount of roughly 6 Mio never happened. Trust those attention-seeking Jews to make a mountain out of a molehill again!
And how could the FIFA, world soccer's governing body, entertain such a motion, really? Realistically, that is? (Or the German government, for that?)
They couldn't just have said "No, you can't come" to Adolfdinejad, really, realistically, or could they!
By the way that is the same FIFA, la Federation Internationale de Fornication avec des Arabes, who, even though they say they don't get involved in politics, found time to reprimand Israel for an artillery strike on March 30, hitting a football stadium in Gaza by which no one was injured. That was in retaliation for Kassam rocket attacks from Gaza (which ironically included one rocket which hit a football pitch in a kibbutz the day before, by which somebody actually WAS injured).
But the FIFA wasn't actually lying, just a bit ... selective in their reaction. They usually DON'T give a damn for politics, for example neither when the Taliban used a football stadium (built with international humanitarian funds) for mass executions and amputations during half time to attract maximum publicity nor over the abuse of a, now legendary, football stadium by a certain South American dictator for similar purposes.
Really, can't somebody shut for once those Jews up?
Realistically, Adolfdinejad might oblige, given time.
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