Recently, the Iranian regime’s anti-Israel campaign scored an own goal when various hard-line regime news outlets targeted former Iranian national soccer team captain Mehdi Mahdavikia with severe criticism and condemnation. Mahdavikia's crime? Wearing a jersey at an international exhibition soccer match arranged by FIFA in Qatar that featured the flags of all 211 FIFA members, including Israel. The Israeli flag, like all of the other flags on the jersey, was so tiny it was almost unrecognizable. But that didn’t stop the media assault against Mahdavikia, who is most famous for scoring Iran's winning goal against the U.S in the 1998 World Cup. Leading the pack against him was Fars News, which is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC); among other things, it accused the former Iranian soccer star of “falling into the trap of Zionists.” The hard-line Kayhan newspaper, whose editor Ali Shariatmadari is appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also condemned Mahdavikia. Some hard-line politicians, such as Ali Salimi, a member of the Iranian parliament, called on him to apologize.
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