Subversive soccer

Iran recently hosted its "first" mixed game in more than a decade, without the holy blessing of the Ayatollah, of course. The youth male team beat the women 7 – 0, the club officials were fined about $5,000 dollars, and some of them were suspended for a year. What’s incredible about this event is the willingness of the players and the officials to organize such a game, knowing the consequences. I doubt that this was the first mixed game (the first one to be discovered by the authorities, perhaps), and I doubt this will be the last.


It’s no secret that women aren’t even allowed in football stadiums, unless they’re watching a women-team play. The Ayotallahs argue that their reasons are moral and religious; women just can’t be around those foul-mouthed soccer hooligans, and they live in a country that implements strict gender segregation. Iranian women defied the authorities and forced their way into the Tehran's Azadi (Freedom) stadium, when Iran qualified for the World Cup by defeating Bahrain 1-0 (back in 2005). In 2006, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lifted the ban, claiming that allowing women in the stadiums would “promote chastity.” They must be given a chance to watch all sporting events and must be given the best seats in the house. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, however, quickly overruled the lift on the ban.

Offside is a good movie to watch about the struggle of female footy fans in Iran. It’s quirky, sweet, and captures the spirit of football better than most movies about this sport. After all, who else would know better the whimsical attraction and poignancy of football, than those who struggle for something as simple as watching a live game.

Paulson's Mini-Bailout for Football Stadium in Portland

Jules Boykoff and Dave Zirin recently wrote a not-to-miss piece called, My Own Private Bailout, about US Treasury Secretary (and second division football team owner) Henry Paulson's attempts to use public money to build a new soccer stadium in Portland.

The piece brings up some important themes found in much of Zirin's other writings, about the relationship between local economies and professional sports in their current, corporate form. Though (particularly in the US) the latter is often touted as a means of developing the former, in a microcosm of wider trickle-down economic theory, the article touches upon some recent studies that have clarified things...

Recently, sports economists Dennis Coates of the University of Maryland and Brad Humphreys of the University of Alberta carried out research that asked whether building new stadiums to entice professional sports teams spurred the local economy.

In their study – which spanned nearly 30 years and examined almost 40 attempts to lure teams – they failed to discover a single example of a sports franchise jumpstarting the local economy. In fact, they uncovered the opposite trend: "a reduction in real per capita income over the entire metropolitan area".

They wrote: "Our conclusion, and that of nearly all academic economists studying this issue, is that professional sports generally have little, if any, positive effect on a city's economy."

Anyway, there's a lot in there, so check it out. It's good.