Considering how much time he spends restricting the rights of his people and alleging that 9/11 was a giant Western conspiracy, we'd be surprised to learn that Iranian president and clown-of-the-century nominee Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has any time for something like sports. But it turns out that Ahmadinejad has a huge thing for soccer—so much so, that one US diplomat dubbed him "The George Steinbrenner of Iran."
This report comes via a US cable released by WikiLeaks, which details the president's meddling with Iran's national soccer team. It seems that Ahmadinejad hoped to use the popularity of Iran's Team Melli to generate support for his campaign before the 2009 elections. He even influenced the firing of two coaches within weeks in 2009—Steinbrenner of course was notorious for firing 21 managers during his 37 years as Yankees owner. It seems Ahmadinjead stepped over the line in the past with the team: Team Melli was suspended from international tournament play in 2006 because of "repeated violations" by Ahmadinejad, who ignored rules barring political interference in the sport.
Even with his meddling, we're a little uncertain whether this is really a fair comparison. Unless Ahmadinejad writes pools and puddles of purple prose, or enjoys the company of an eggplant calzone for lunch everyday, we just can't get behind the comparison with The Boss. And of course, according to past WikiLeaks, Ahmadinejad had previously been compared to Hitler.
Ahmadinejad has already dismissed the Wikileak cables as a United States ploy to make him look bad. But try as he might to put on his sunny clown-face, obviously not everything is right in Ahmadinejadland: the president recently sold his 1977 Peugeot 504 for $2.5 million, saying that the money will go to fund the build of 60,000 homes for women and the disabled...but we'll believe it when we see it.
