Iranian Footballer Mahdavikia sparks controversy after being trained by Israeli coach

Iranian football player Mehdi Mahdavikia sparked controversy after he played in a showcase match with an Israeli coach at the FIFA Arab Cup.

According to Jerusalem Post, the top athlete was trained by Jewish coach Avram Grant for the match, which also witnessed participation from various Arab football players. However, as the news of Grant's involvement in the game broke out, scores of players expressed opposition and some even withdrew from the match.

Three Algerian players withdrew from the football match and many others erased Israeli flags from their jerseys in protests. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the State of Israel have been trading barbs for decades over a range of issues including regional supremacy, nuclear weapons, and Iran's support to militias in Syria and Yemen. Notably, Israel also has frozen relationships with other Islamic nations in the region despite inking Abraham's Accords with a few of them.

Meanwhile, Mahdavikia also triggered a backlash in the Islamic Republic. A newspaper associated with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei attacked the football player for playing in a match "unrelated to Iran, dressed in a flag of the Zionist regime and against a team coached by a zionist". The Fars News Agency also expressed outrage that Mahdavikia had not apologized for taking part in the match.

Nuclear war between Iran and Israel

Israel recently warned the west to not fall into Iran's Nuclear blackmail after negotiations into 2015 JCPOA deal ended inconclusively. The deal, signed in 2015 between Iran and other major world powers, including the United States, France, Britain, China, Russia, and Germany (P5+1), saw Washington lift economic sanctions against Tehran.

In return, the Islamic Republic agreed to bring down its uranium enrichment program. However, in 2018, then US President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the pact.

While Washington claimed that Tehran’s proposed conditions to resume the pact were below satisfaction, Iranian nuclear czar  Eslami said that Tehran had accepted all its commitments made as a part of the deal. Eslami stated that all the parties, under the 2015 Nuclear deal, are required to fulfil their commitments, according to Xinhua. 

Image: Jerusha__Abbott/twitter