MEPs urge World Cup ban over Iran's nuclear policy

Most recently, a group of EU-Parliamentarians have sent a letter to FIFA urging it to take immediate action and ban the Iranian football players from stepping onto the field.

The initiative comes from British MEP and current President of Sports Intergroup, Chris Heaton Harris. He is concerned about Iran’s nuclear policy and the threats to destroy Israel issued by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

By banning Iran from the World Cup, the MEP’s hope to send a clear signal to Iran that the international community will not tolerate Iran’s nuclear policy.

Heaton argues that boycotting certain countries from large sporting events has been done in the past and he mentions the example of the international lockout of South Africa from sporting events at the time of the apartheid system in South Africa.

Germany and FIFA do not favour a ban
Members of the European Parliament have no legal power to impose a decision on FIFA or on the German authorities.

The German government has already said that it is not in favour of banning the Iranian football team.  Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared that excluding Iran from the World Cup does not represent an appropriate means to get Ahmadinejad to negotiate with the international community.

FIFA has also rejected previous calls by the US and European politicians to prevent Iran from coming to the tournament and maintains that it is not their place to mix politics and sport. “FIFA is a sporting organisation and not a political one“; FIFA spokesman John Schumacher told BBC Radio.

Germany would prefer the president to stay at home
Meanwhile, the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sparked further controversy because of his statements that Holocaust was a myth and Israel should be wiped off the map.

Ahmadinejad is expected to turn up in Germany to watch his national team play and that has raised a series of political dilemmas. Denying the genocide of six million Jews is a crime in Germany and punishable by up to five years in prison but as head of state Ahmadinejad has diplomatic immunity.

Big efforts are made to prevent the embarrassment of the Iranian president turning up in Germany. One of the ways the international political community has sought to prevent Ahmadinejad from attending the World Cup has been to apply pressure on FIFA. The big question that remains is whether FIFA will abide international pressure and declare the Iranian President “persona non grata” for the duration of the tournament.

The most recent development has been requests from politicians in several European countries that the European Union should impose a general travel ban on Iran’s political elite as a possible way of denying unwanted individuals access to the World Cup.