The ‘beautiful game’ turned ugly as soon as Iran-Russia kicked off

WRITERS for TASS, Russia’s state-owned news agency, had struggled to make up their mind. They referred to last night’s meeting with Iran as a friendly. And also an exhibition.

Neither quite fit. Neither quite captured the core of this international clash of outcasts. Nothing rolls off the tongue, in fairness. But how about… a disgrace? Or an exhibition of football’s grubby relationship with politics and pariahs and morals?

The sport lost as soon as this game kicked off. As soon as two teams, representing two countries piling misery on to fear and destruction, were allowed to organise a kickabout. For those interested, it ended in Tehran: Iran 1 Russia 1. Invaders pegged back by ‘Morality Police’ State?

We await the final score of crimes against humanity.

And yet, Russia will not have to wait long for another run-out, against Iraq on Sunday.

Valery Karpin’s side have been banned from UEFA and FIFA competitions following the invasion of Ukraine. At TASS, they call it the situation. We know it better as a 13-month assault on a neighbouring democracy.

Since protests erupted in Iran last September, meanwhile, reports of murder, imprisonment, disappearance, torture and rape have followed. Security forces stand accused of firing on unarmed children; kids are said to have described sexual abuse and electric shocks; and a wave of suspected poisonings has struck schoolgirls.

Unrest has stalked the team since before the World Cup in Qatar. Russia were expelled from that tournament.

Unfortunately, football’s lawmakers are powerless to prevent two nations playing in this international window.

‘We do not experience a flow of people who want to play with us,’ a Russian football chief bemoaned recently. Iran were happy to oblige and Sportsmail caught some of the action on a dodgy stream that held up long enough to see Russia take the lead through a first-half penalty.

That prompted the camera crew to cut to a pocket of visiting supporters. TASS reported that up to 500 Russian fans would be in Tehran. And there they were, with flags and face paint. There was a decent crowd on the far side of the ground. Others areas, not in view of the cameras, appeared deserted. Funny that. OpenStadiums, ‘a movement of Iranian Women seeking to end discrimination’, suggested those females supporting the home team had been hand-selected for a PR show.

Before long, our stream cut to an Italian TV show about celebrities and, it seems, cosmetic surgery. Alas, nothing could touch up this mess.