May 20, 2022
When the draw for the 1998 World Cup put the USA and Iran together in Group F, the world braced itself for trouble.
Iranian-born Mehrdad Masoudi was a FIFA media officer for the match being played in France.
“One of the first problems was that Iran were Team B and the USA were Team A,” Masoudi explained in 2014. “According to FIFA regulations, Team B should walk toward Team A for the pre-match handshakes. But Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenehi gave express orders that the Iranian team must not walk toward the Americans.”
Masoudi said he eventually negotiated a compromise that saw the Americans walk toward the Iranians.
But that was the least of FIFA’s worries, Masoudi said. The Mojahedin-e Khalq had bought 7,000 tickets and were planning a protest during the match.
“From the intelligence we’d received, we knew who the main troublemakers would be,” said Masoudi. “We issued the TV cameramen with photos so they knew which people and which banners to avoid. The match was being beamed around the world and the last thing we wanted was for this group to sabotage the occasion and use it for their own political purpose.”
While many of the protesters successfully smuggled in portions of banners and pieced them together with Velcro, the TV cameras ignored them. But with the group’s initial plan foiled, intelligence sources had been tipped off about Plan B – a mass invasion of the playing field.
FIFA contacted the French riot police. “They wouldn’t enter the stadium unless it was an extreme case,” Masoudi said. They decided this was an extreme case, stationed officers around the stadium and bottled up the fans.
When the two teams came out for the start of the match, it was everything FIFA and the Iranian Football Federation could have wished for. “The president of the Iranian Federation wanted to use the match to show his country in the best possible light,” said Masoudi. “He asked the kit man to buy a bunch of flowers for every player to take onto the pitch. They were white roses, a symbol of peace in Iran.”
Iran took the lead five minutes before half-time with a goal from Hamid Estili. Mehdi Mahdavi-kia doubled the lead after 84 minutes and, despite a late goal from American Brian McBride, the Iranians held on to record what is still their only victory in a World Cup final.
The loss to Iran condemned the USA to elimination from the 1998 World Cup, but despite this the players recognized the part they played in a historic match. “We did more in 90 minutes than the politicians did in 20 years,” said US defender Jeff Agoos at the time.
