Football, the most popular sport in the world, is the second sport after wrestling, which in Iran is called “national sport” and “Iran’s first sport”. However, many football as “first sport” and “ They are called “the most popular sport in Iran”. Football has penetrated the lives of many Iranians. More than 12 football-related newspapers are published daily in Iran, and the matches of prestigious European leagues are broadcast live on TV channels for free.
But football was first started by the British living in Iran in Tehran and some big cities, as well as the sailors of foreign ships in the ports of Khorramshahr, Bushehr, Bandar Abbas, etc. In the capital, members of the British Embassy, the Royal Bank and the Telegraph House spent their leisure time playing football, and as the number of members gradually increased, they formed three independent football teams and played on the pitch at every opportunity. People from all over the city competed with each other.
In 1286, Springing Rice, the British sovereign minister in Iran, prepared two cups, one for football and the other for hockey, in order to create a sense of competition among the players and to make the games official, and the first official football match between the three teams Done the same year. These trophies were in the National Association of Physical Education of Iran for a long time and on it was written the following sentence: Tehran Football Association Club (1907 Social Club), the games of English teams were mostly played in Mashgh Square and for several years No Iranian participated in these games. Sometimes, when they had few players, they used the Iranians who were watching them on the field to complete the number of players in their team.
The first Iranian to join English teams was Karim Zandi, who played in those teams from 1287 to 1295. The uproar of English players on the football field gradually drew Iranian teenagers and young people, especially Tehranians, to the football fields. Anyway, Iranian teenagers and young people in the cities where the British were present, watched the English games so much on the sidelines of the football fields that they got acquainted with the technique of this game. Then they tried to imitate them to form a football team and play.
But there was a big problem in implementing this request, and that was not having the ball. Obtaining a soccer ball was the greatest dream of the youth and teenagers interested in football at that time, but although there was no real ball in hand, the football enthusiasm caused the children of each dormitory to make a ball on their own initiative with the available equipment. And play in the barren lands that abounded in the corners of the city. One of the initiatives in making a soccer ball was to use a cow bladder. They inflated a cow’s bladder and sewed a cloth over it and played with it.
Of course, another way to get the ball was to borrow the English soccer ball. To achieve this, the football-loving children lurked next to the English football fields, and as soon as the ball moved away from the field of play, in the blink of an eye, the ball went hand in hand and in Alleys and back alleys were disappearing.
Simultaneously with the spontaneous movement of local youth in the spread of football in Tehran and Iran around 1288 and 1289 (AD), the American School (now Alborz) located at the crossroads of the college, teaching football to Iranian students in 1910. It started for the first time. In this school, students played tennis or handmade balls.
Shortly afterwards, Dr. Jordan, the principal of the school, took the ball from the English living in Tehran and began teaching and practicing football at the school and organizing competitions between the students.
These games, along with the seasonal competitions of the teams of English companies, continued regularly until 1293 AD and were completely stopped with the beginning of the First World War. After the war, football revived in Tehran and some cities in Iran, and the presence of British troops left over from the war was further exacerbated and a significant leap in the quality and quantity of Iranian football emerged.
British institutions, as in previous years, formed teams and worked under the supervision of a person named Howard who worked at the British Consulate in Tehran, and because of the number of British living in Tehran to form a complete team for each telegraph office, consulate and Shahi Bank was not enough, they used Iranian players in their teams again.
With the increase in the number of Iranian players in these institutions, some of these players thought of creating a team consisting of Iranian players. In early 1299, this team was formed as the Iran Club.
The members of this team were: Khan Sardar brothers, Amir Asal Ney brothers, Karim Zandi, Mohammad Ali Shokouh, Azizullah Afkhami, Reza Kalantar, Sheibani, Hassan Moftah, Herand, Galostian, Khajeh Nouri, Reza Rabizadeh, Hambarson, Ashrafi and. … Iran Club participated in the competitions of 1299 in Mashgh Square, in which the English living in Tehran participated. The children of this team reached the final with their brilliant games, and although they lost to the English living in the center, they created a lot of hope for the future.
The children of the Iran Club finally won the championship in 1302, and after that they went to the newly established team of the Tehran Club. Other teams of that time include the Armenian sports team and the Toofan team, which were formed in those days, and the competitions of these three teams were extremely spectacular.
In 1304, in the Salah-e-Na competitions held by English institutions, the Tehran Club team succeeded in defeating the English living in the center with a result of 2 to 1, and fulfilled a long-standing dream.
After this success, the sports ambassador of the Soviet city of Badkoubeh invited a team from Iran to this city, and the selected players from the 3 clubs of Tehran Club, Armenian Sports and Toofan went to Badkoubeh as the selected Tehran. These were the first Iranian football ambassadors abroad, so when they entered Badkoubeh, several thousand people came to greet them. In the first match, the Iranian team lost to Badkoubeh 2–0.
The second opponent was the team of Badkoubeh Petroleum College, which ended in a goalless draw.
The first football organization in Iran was the “Football Promotion Association”, which was formed by people such as Abolfazl Sadri, Mirbagher Azimi and Seyed Mohammad Tadayon, who were among the first sports teachers in the country, in 1300 AD. After that, every year, along with the registration of new clubs and teams, the association undertook to hold football matches and took steps to establish order and legalize football in Iran by compiling and translating “football laws”.
The Football Development and Promotion Association succeeded in holding the first round of the capital football matches between the teams present in Tehran in 1302, matches that were held almost without interruption every year and with the development of football throughout the country and the emergence of strong teams in cities. National competitions (leagues) became. This association was replaced by the formation of the “Association of Physical Education and Scouting” by the government of the time until 1313, sending the first selected team of Iran to the Soviet balloon, holding twelve football matches of Tehran clubs, publishing the first treatise on football rules In Iran and registered about 50 football clubs across the country in his record.
The first Iranian sports organization was established in 1913 with the formation of the “Association of Physical Education and Scouting” under the Ministry of Education (Culture), and since then it has supervised all sports programs and competitions in schools. The Football Promotion Association was gradually merged with the Physical Education Association and its activities were limited to schools. The organization of Iranian sports contributed significantly to its growth in the country.
In 1319, in order for Iranian athletes to participate in the Olympic Games, the first steps were taken to form sports federations, including the Football Federation, and from this year, the country’s football was practically under the supervision of this federation, which was called the Football Assembly. During the years of occupation of Iran, the Assembly was in charge of football in the most difficult conditions and was able to take advantage of the presence of the Allied army in Iran and by holding a series of football matches between the teams of this army and domestic teams, It also kept hot. In 1320, the Football Association succeeded in making possible the first official trip of the Iranian national team abroad and sent this team to Afghanistan.
After the end of World War II, the Iranian Football Association was renamed the Iranian Football Federation in 1325 and in early 1326 submitted its application for membership to FIFA. This request was accepted by FIFA in the meeting of January 20, 1948, equal to December 20, 1326.
The Iranian national team has participated in five World Cups in 1978, 1998, 2006, 2014 and 2018.
Iranian football clubs
Esteghlal and Persepolis, the two clubs in Tehran, are the main hubs of Iranian football. For two years, these two clubs have been the leading powers of Iranian football, and even residents of other cities in Iran are fans of these two teams. Since the beginning of the Premier League and with the victory of teams such as Sepahan Isfahan, Saipa Karaj, Foolad Khuzestan and Pas Tehran in the Premier League, this approach has changed somewhat. The number of spectators in Premier League matches varies greatly. Some games attract less than 500 spectators, while the Tehran derby has more than 100,000 spectators.
Iranian clubs in international competitions
Iranian clubs have won the Asian Club Cup three times so far. Esteghlal Tehran has won the Asian Championship twice in 1349 and 1370, and Pas Tehran once in 1372. Esteghlal is the proudest club in this competition with two championships and a runner-up along with Al-Hilal of Saudi Arabia. Persepolis has reached the final of the Asian Champions League once and has become the runner-up. Sepahan Isfahan, with a runner-up title in the Asian Clubs Cup in 2007, became the first Iranian team to qualify for the 2007 Club World Cup.
Important Iranian football derbies
• Tehran Derby
• Isfahan Derby
• Gilan derby
• Ahwaz Derby
• Tabriz Derby
Women are not allowed to enter the stadiums
Iranian women do not have the right to watch games in stadiums. Banning women from playing in stadiums is considered sex discrimination. So far, however, there have been reports of unauthorized participation of girls in boys’ uniforms in stadiums. And in recent years, women’s rights activists have called for women to be free to watch men’s sports. One of them is the campaign “Defending the right of women to enter stadiums”. The first appearance of women in Iranian stadiums dates back to the Iran-Bahrain match in the 2006 World Cup qualifiers. In this game in which Iran reached the World Cup, in addition to women, the then President of Iran, Seyed Mohammad Khatami, was also a special spectator.
At the beginning of 2006, the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sent a letter to the head of the Physical Education Organization, requesting that women be allowed to attend the stadiums, which, despite the explicit opposition of a group of clerics in Qom, he was unable to implement.
