Here's the butt-clenching moment. Photo credit: YouTube
Anyone who has played football at even a thoroughly amateur level will know that it can be tremendously exciting when a teammate scores a cracking goal, especially if it is in a hard-fought, close game against a perennial rival. When goals are scored, the goalscorer is often mobbed by excited teammates in a chaotic group hug. Sometimes the overall exuberance can get a little out of hand. In Iran, such over exuberance has led to two players being banned from the game and fined.
The Iranian football federation has scrutinised footage of Persepolis defender Mohammed Nosrati squeezing teammate Sheis Rezaei’s buttocks following a goal during the Persian Gulf Cup. Both the squeezer and the squeezed have been $40,000 each and “banned indefinitely from all football activities for committing immoral acts.”
Jalal Yahyazadeh, a cleric and member of parliament, called it a “shameless act” and added that it had “upset, angered and outraged” all sports fans, reported The Daily Mail. “What happened is absolutely not acceptable because it was a very ugly thing”, he added.
“I’m not exactly sure how Rezaei got roped into the censure, seeing as he clearly swatted Nosrati’s hand away before it could actually enter his Strait of Hormuz”,noted Seth Abramovitch at Gawker, who joked, “Let’s just hope they don’t now convene a special meeting of the First Supreme Towel-Snapping Heretics’ Tribunal. You know those Iranian clerics — they can get a little overzealous when it comes to locker room crackdowns.”
While the players are likely distraught to have been punished so heavily they can take some comfort in the fact that the “what what in the butt” clip has raced to almost 250,000 hits on YouTube.