In a move that has stunned absolutely no one with a functional grasp of international relations, the United States has grudgingly granted visas to the Iranian national football team, allowing them to attend some sort of sporting event that apparently hasn't been cancelled due to geopolitical posturing. The UK, never one to miss an opportunity to wring its hands over a football match, has issued a statement urging 'fair play' — a phrase that sounds suspiciously like something a man in a pinstripe suit would say while sipping tea and ignoring the elephant in the room that is the complete breakdown of the JCPOA.
Let us pause to appreciate the sheer theatre of it all. Here we have two nations whose leaders have spent the better part of a decade exchanging insults via Twitter and the occasional drone strike, now engaging in the delicate minuet of visa issuance for a group of men in shorts who kick a ball. It is almost refreshing to see international diplomacy reduced to its purest form: a power struggle over whether the visiting team will have to endure an extra three hours in the duty-free lounge at Heathrow.
The Iranian players, no doubt trained in both football and the art of navigating bureaucratic hurdles, will now step onto American soil, which is a feat many Iranian academics and journalists have found rather more difficult. But for a friendly (or perhaps not so friendly) game, the gears of state grind just enough to let the lads through. One imagines a special 'Cultural Exchange' stamp in their passports, next to a note that says 'please return football, or else.'
Meanwhile, the UK government, in a move that combines the best of both meddling and cluelessness, has declared that it 'expects all parties to respect the spirit of the game.' This is the same government that gave us Brexit, the Poll Tax, and the salad bar at Wetherspoon's. Their idea of 'fair play' probably involves a points system and a stern letter from the Foreign Office. I half-expected the statement to include a mandatory cringe-worthy hashtag like #FootbalDiplomacy or #Goalpeace. Mercifully, it did not.
But let us not mock the match entirely. There is something genuinely, absurdly beautiful about football as a diplomatic tool. When the world is on fire, and your leaders are exchanging nuclear threats like late-night trading cards, the sight of twenty-two men chasing a ball across a field is positively Edenesque. It reminds us that beneath the bluster and the sanctions, we are all just people who want to see someone score a goal, miss a penalty, or get sent off for a particularly egregious two-footed tackle on a diplomat's son.
And yet, one cannot ignore the lurking cynicism. The US visa approval is less about warming hearts and more about not looking like total arses on the world stage. The UK's plea for fair play is a classic case of 'do as I say, not as I do' — the same country that invaded Iraq because of some dodgy dossiers now wants everyone to play nicely. It's enough to make a man reach for the gin.
So as the Iranian team boards their plane, as the American officials check their lists three times, as the British diplomats sip their Earl Grey and pat themselves on the back, let us raise a glass of something strong to the beautiful game. It may not solve the nuclear question. It may not bring peace to the Middle East. But for ninety minutes, plus injury time, it will give us all something to shout at that isn't each other.
And if that's not worth a visa or two, I don't know what is.
