Protesting soccer players banned for life.

[babylonsister]

:(

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/23/footballers-banned-for-life/

Protesting soccer players banned for life.


Last Wednesday, six members of Iran’s football team wore green writstbands in apparent support of the anti-Ahmadinejad protesters. Now Iranian authorities “have taken revenge by imposing life bans” on four of those players, the Guardian reports:

Most of the players obeyed instructions to remove the armwear at half-time, but Mahdavikia wore his green captain’s armband for the entire match. The four are also said to have been banned from giving media interviews.

The fate of the other two players who wore the wristbands is unknown. None of the team members were given back their passports upon returning to Tehran after the match, which ended in a 1-1 draw – a result that ended Iran’s hopes of qualifying for next year’s tournament.

(HT: Andrew Sullivan)

[imdjh]

1. Italy just got four new soccer players, I should think. nt (if they live of course)

[scheming daemons]

3. Their passports were revoked. they can't leave Iran, even if they are still alive and not imprisoned

[damntexdem]

10. Hey, if they can get out of the country, some country will give them passports.

And make residents if they'll play on the national team. Hell, if they're good enough, some country would likely make them citizens.

On the other hand, the Iranian team didn't qualify ...

[JI7]

20. or escape to an embassy ?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

23. According to FIFA rules, no person may play on more than one national team.

Not even if you change citizenship.

Not that it'd hurt their careers too much if they escape Iran and go live in Europe.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. I wonder if those guys are going to be the next Nedas. :(

[babylonsister]

4. Gawd, I hope not, but everyone knows who they are in Iran,

I bet. If they wanted to make an example of someone well-known, those players would work. Conversely, that would make people even angrier, if that were possible.

[tomreedtoon]

5. Pity we can't help them, but Americans hate soccer.

No matter how much the rest of the world likes it, we can't do a damn thing. Soccer is only played by paranoid high school districts who are afraid of the violence of American football. Maybe if they could crosstrain and learn basketball...

[VWolf]

6. Meh. American football is for wimps. Too much protection.

You should try rugby. Any sport that forces you to tape your ears to your head so they don't get ripped off deserves respect.

And for the record, I got hacked a whole lot more in pick-up soccer than I ever did in pick-up football.
I played rugby only once - it was the longest 5 minutes of my life.

[11 Bravo]

7. The best part of soccer is watching someone fall down as if they'd just taken an RPG in the nuts ...

then writhe around in a display of agony that would embarrass John Barrymore, then hop up and resume play.

[VWolf]

8. Ah, that would have to be an Argentinian

There's more than one drinking game based on it.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

12. soccer players just heal quickly.

and if you can earn a yellow or a red out of it, that's part of the game.

[ddeclue]

18. DUZY ALERT!

Oh and you need the protection in American football when 6 6'8" 320lb guys who can bench press a Buick slam you to the ground and pile on.

:rofl:

[a la izquierda]

21. My husband, a life long soccer player...

can't stand that. The agony...oh, I just laugh.

[ColbertWatcher]

16. Overweight wimps who need timeouts every 45 seconds. n/t

[malaise]

9. Hope you don't help them the way the US Olympic Assoication helped Tommy Smith and John Carlos

after their 1968 black power salute at the Mexico Olympics.

How did the US Government help Ali when he refused to join the army and kill some Vietnamese again?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

11. the fastest growing sport

(both by spectator and player) and you follow the lead of dunces from MSM who are too lazy to understand the world's most beautiful sport?

Sorry, but when I go to Soldier Field for an international friendly, and there are 66,000 people there, or to Chicago Fire's stadium, and it is packed with fans, I really suspect that you knoweth not what you speak.

[babylonsister]

13. "They had been sports heroes, now they're just hero heroes." Thanks, Rachel. nt

[malaise]

14. I'm glad she also mentioned

Tommy Smith John Carlos and Ali

[Are_grits_groceries]

17. And the silver medalist from 1968

should be remembered too.

The other man on the podium

<snip>
An apprentice butcher from Melbourne, he had learned to run in a pair of borrowed spikes. More significantly, he had grown up in a Salvation Army family, with a set of simple but strong values instilled from an early age.

As his nephew Matt Norman, director of the new film, Salute, remembers: "The whole Norman family were brought up in the Salvos, so we knew we had to look after our fellow man, but that was about it."

In Mexico, that was enough for Norman, who felt compelled to join forces with his fellow athletes in their stand against racial inequality.
Norman was one of Australia's foremost athletes but was ostracised

The three were waiting for the victory ceremony when Norman discovered what was about to happen. It was Norman who, when John Carlos found he'd forgotten his black gloves, suggested the two runners shared Smith's pair, wearing one each on the podium.

And when, to the crowd's astonishment, they flung their fists in the air, the Australian joined the protest in his own way, wearing a badge from the Olympic Project for Human Rights that they had given him.

The repercussions for Norman were immediate. Seen as a trouble-maker who had lent a hand to those desecrators of the Olympic flag, he was ostracised by the Australian establishment. Despite qualifying 13 times over and being ranked fifth in the world, he was not sent to the following Munich games, where Australia had no sprinter for the first time in the Olympics. Norman retired soon afterwards without winning another title.

Sydney hope

Divorce and ill health all weighed down on him over the next few years. He suffered depression, drank heavily and grew addicted to painkillers after a lengthy hospital stay. During that time, he used his silver medal as a door-stop.

One of the things that kept him going was the hope that he would be welcomed and recognised at the Sydney Olympics. As his nephew puts it: "Then his life would have come full circle."
The US monument to the protest has an empty space

He was to be disappointed. In 2000, Peter Norman found himself the only Australian Olympian to be excluded from making a VIP lap of honour at the games, despite his status as one of the best sprinters in the home country's history.

But the US athletics team was not going ignore this omission. They invited Norman to stay at their own lodgings during the games, and welcomed him as one of their own. In an extraordinary turn of events, it was hurdling legend Ed Moses who greeted him at the door, and that year's 200m champion Michael Johnson who hugged him, saying: "You are my hero."

In 2004, Peter's nephew Matt started work on Salute, a documentary that, for the first time, brought all three athletes together in a room to tell their story of that day in Mexico.

Two years later, Peter had just seen the film for the first time and was about to embark on a publicity tour to the US when he had a heart attack and died. Tommy Smith and John Carlos, to whom he had always stayed close, travelled to Melbourne to act as pallbearers at his funeral, and remember their friend.

http://www.iconocast.com/B000000000000066/O2/News1.htm

He was a quiet hero.

[malaise]

19. The silver medal winner was John Carlos n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. Reminiscent of the Zimbabwe test players banned in 2003

Nearing the end of his career, Flower achieved international recognition (along with team mate Henry Olonga) in 2003 by wearing a black armband in a Cricket World Cup match to protest against the policies of Zimbabwe's government, led by Robert Mugabe. He and Olonga released a statement on 10 February, stating in part:

In all the circumstances, we have decided that we will each wear a black armband for the duration of the World Cup. In doing so we are mourning the death of democracy in our beloved Zimbabwe. In doing so we are making a silent plea to those responsible to stop the abuse of human rights in Zimbabwe. In doing so, we pray that our small action may help to restore sanity and dignity to our Nation.

This act led to pressure from Zimbabwe's government and Flower's retirement from Zimbabwean cricket. He later played an English county cricket season for Essex and an Australian domestic season for South Australia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Flower

Flower is now the team director for the England cricket team; Olonga is a cricket commentator (I've heard him occasionally on British radio, but I've no idea what his singing is like).

[Dorian Gray]

22. Wow...

I hope that they can leave Iran and play for another country somewhere.

[HarvardMed]

24. Politics and sports never mix well