“Iran: 0, Argentina: 100.” This is just one of over tens of thousands of apologetic comments that were posted onto the Facebook wall of Lional Messi by Iranian Facebook users over the weekend. The FC Barcelona forward and Argentinian National Soccer Team captain faced an unprecedented Facebook campaign of bullying over the weekend at the hands of Iranian trolls. As the public relations disaster began to unfold, Iranians across the globe began their own campaign to show the “true face of Iran,” and flooded Messi’s Facebook page with remorseful comments asking for forgiveness.
An online “troll” is defined as someone who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument. Last Friday, within minutes after the 2014 FIFA World Cup pots were drawn, and FIFA announced that both Iran and Argentina were in Group F, over 3,000 offensive comments surfaced on Messi’s latest Facebook posts instantaneously. Iranian Facebook directed profanities towards the 2012 FIFA player of the year, and posted offensive comments such as, “You're small like copper (Messi means “copper” in Persian), but even if you were made of gold, you would have no chance against us."
Iranian Messi fans worldwide united and began posting in English and Persian by the thousands.
“I am from Iran and I Love you.”
“Khak to sare hamvatanam.” (Damn all my countrymen)
“Some people are stupid, but not all...we love u...”
The few thousand negative and offensive comments quickly became drowned out by the tens of thousands of apologetic comments by Iranians from around the world. So much in fact that Messi had to address Iranians commentators directly, acknowledge their efforts, but also ordered them to cool down: “Iranian people...I love you and your country...Stop this way,” Messi wrote on one of his Facebook posts.
Another relentless attack by the trolls involved invoking the name of Hashem Beikzadeh, Iran’s star midfielder for the National Team. “Beikzadeh should cut down the Messi so that he looks like a character on a foosball table,” wrote another Facebook user. In true competitor fashion, Messi once again responded directly to the incoming onslaught of supportive comments and confessed that although he appreciated Iran’s rich culture he would now be gunning for Hashem Beikzadeh.
Another manner in which shame-faced Iranian got their point across was to create Facebook Pages such as “Iranians Apologize to Fernanda Lima & Leo Messi,” and “Iranians love Messi.” Pages such as these are literally being created every few hours.
Unfortunately the Iranian trolls didn’t limit their attacks to just Messi. They also attacked Fernanda Lima, the Brazilian model and actress who was present during the 2014 FIFA World Cup pot drawing and helped select teams during the drawing. Trolls made sexual comments about her revealing dress, called her offensive names such as prostitute, and even posted comments threatening her with rape. Similar to Messi’s run-in with trolls, Iranians flooded Lima’s Facebook with loving and supportive comments. Some users even posted the profiles of trolls to expose them publicly. Other users blamed Islam for such blatant sexist attacks. “All of these uncultured (people) are the result of Islam,” claimed one user.
This isn’t the first time that Iranians have used Facebook to attack an individual’s personal Facebook page. During the first round of nuclear negotiations in Geneva, Iranians attacked French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius with explicit and offensive language. Iranians presumed it was his fault for stalling the first round of negotiations at the behest of Israel. Amusingly, a soccer fan in an Iranian online soccer forum claimed that all this trolling could be Israel’s doing because of the reconciliation of the “Iran and Argentina (political) relationship, and the (AMIA0 terror bombings many years ago.”
The incident reverberated back to mainstream Iranian society as domestic media began to report on the online debacle. Mohammad Reza Mullahmohammad, the head of Iran’s Soccer Federation’s Cultural Committee apologized publicly by saying, “As a country, we have certain cultural, social and religious values that we stick by and form the pillar of our society. We have much respect for all our opponents in the World Cup, and while we appreciate and understand rivalry and competition, we condemn such insulting behavior by some fans against one of the greatest football players in the world.”
It’s hard to imagine any Iranian more upset about this public relations nightmare than Hashem Beikzadeh. Due the actions of some online trolls, the midfielder for Iran’s National Team will now directly have to bear the wrath of the world’s best soccer player in the 2014 World Cup.
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