Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
SPORT
Football is a national obsession and Iran has
been competing internationally since 1941, win-
ning three Asian Cups during the '60s and '70s
and qualifying for three World Cups. The men's
professional league has 18 teams in the top divi-
sion and runs from August to May, with games
played most Thursdays and Fridays.
You'll see kids playing football in streets and
squares across Iran, but you won't see too many pitches. This is partly because religious
strictures mean women should not see unrelated men in shorts, so most grounds are behind
large walls. Women are barred from attending men's sporting events even though they are,
conversely, free to watch them on TV; this oft-debated issue is dealt with in Jafar Panahi's
film
Offside.
Wrestling, skiing, tae kwon do and archery are also popular.
Modern-day restrictions aside, Iran does have an interesting sporting history. Polo is be-
lieved to have originated in Iran and was certainly played during the reign of Darius the
Great. Shah Abbas the Great also enjoyed polo, and today you can still see the burly stone
goal posts at either end of Esfahan's Naqsh-e Jahan (Imam) Sq. Another ancient sport pe-
culiar to Iran is the
zurkhaneh
(literally, 'house of strength').
Iran's biggest football rivalry is between Tehran
clubs Persepolis (pronounced 'Perspolis' and play-
ing in red), known as the working-class team, and
Esteghlal (blue home strip), the villainous wealthy
club.
ZURKHANEH
Unique to Iran, the
zurkhaneh
literally means 'house of strength' and is a mix of sport, theatre and religion that dates
back thousands of years. As it was refined through the ages, the
zurkhaneh
picked up different components of moral,
ethical, philosophical and mystical values of Iranian civilisation. The
zurkhaneh
itself is a small, traditional gymnasi-
um often decorated like a shrine, and what goes on inside incorporates the spiritual richness of Sufism, traditional
rituals of Mithraism and the heroism of Iranian nationalism. Typically a group of men stand around a circular pit and
perform a series of ritualised feats of strength, all to the accompaniment of a leader pounding out a frenetic drumbeat.
The leader sings verses from epics such as the
Shahnameh
and recites poetry by Hafez. Most
zurkhaneh
are open to
the public and it's usually free to watch. You won't see many local women, but Western women are welcomed as hon-
orary men.
