farmdoc's blog post number 630

Wishing someone Happy New Year. In recent days millions of people around the world have done it. It’s a nice thing to do. A gesture of goodwill. A bit trite and shallow, maybe. But pretty innocuous. Not so, though, if your name’s Mohammad-Mansour Azimzadeh Ardebili. He’s the director of the Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s [FFIRI’s] foreign relations office. And recently he emailed new year greetings to all national association members of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association [FIFA]. Trouble is, included in the list of recipients was the Israel Soccer Federation [ISF] – specifically Amir Navon who’s the head of the ISF’s legal department, and ironically ‘an Israeli of Iranian origin’. As Israel’s a robust if not boisterous liberal democracy, irony and tongue-in-cheek humour aren’t lacking there. And so the ISF replied to the FFIRI’s greeting with a ‘happy new year to all the good people of Iran’ and a hope that they’d have a happy soccer year. And for good measure the ISF added a smiley wink. Totalitarian theocracies, however, lack senses of irony and humour. So due to his errant email Mr Ardebili resigned his FFIRI position. Or more likely he was sacked. (He’s lucky he wasn’t executed.) Anyway Farmdoc wishes you a happy new year, sir. And remember: you aren’t the first person in history to score an own goal. And you won’t be the last.