June 22, 2018
The Nike sportswear company raised an immense stink this month when it issued a statement saying US sanctions meant it could not sell any soccer shoes to Iranian players.
What most people missed was that Nike hasn’t been selling the Iranian team any equipment for more than two decades.
Coach Carlos Queiroz took the Nike statement and ran with it, calling the American company “arrogant,” demanding an apology and asserting that Nike’s action “has been a source of inspiration for us.”
Queiroz has often played to Iranian nationalist concerns, portraying Iran and the team as afflicted by hateful foreigners. Whether that does anything to inspire the players is questionable, but it likely gives Queiroz some cover with hardliners who are always suspicious of him as a foreigner.
Others also expressed anger at Nike. Forward Karim Ansarifard told ESPN, “What Nike did to us was very wrong.”
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) said, “We are disappointed that Nike has boycotted Iran’s World Cup players by refusing to provide shoes.” But the team never sought shoes from Nike or its main competitors, Puma and Adidas. NIAC pointed out that boycotts can cut two ways, noting and condemning Iran’s refusal to allow its athletes to compete against Israelis.
Many Europeans jumped on the anti-Nike bandwagon and assailed the company furiously, as it is common in Europe to carp about US sanctions on Iran as unthinking and capricious.
But the June 8 announcement also said the sanctions “have been in place for many years.” That begged the question of why Nike even bothered to issue its statement since it had nothing new to say.
It was only nine days later that Nike got around to answering a query from USA Today by explaining that the company has not sold shoes or anything else to Iran “for many years” because of the US sanctions, which have been in effect since 1995, barring US firms from selling Iran anything but agricultural products, pharmaceuticals and medical gear.
Why then did Nike issue its statement June 8 saying, “US sanctions mean that, as a US company, Nike cannot supply shoes to players in the Iranian national team at this time.”
Note the qualifier: “…as a US company…”. In other words, players can go into a store and buy Nikes—and a look at the players’ shoes shows that several have done so and wear Nikes. One report said the Iranian national team has no shoe contract and players bring their own shoes with them from their professional clubs.
Some commentators portrayed Nike as trying to disable the team by denying it shoes. But that assumes the players came to Moscow without shoes and had been playing barefoot. Radio Farda even went so far as to broadcast: “Nike’s move reportedly forced some Iranian players to buy their own footwear from shops in Russia … or even ask teammates for help.”
The Iranian team’s jerseys are provided by Adidas, a German firm.