When England line up against Iran in Doha today, the VIP seats should be studded with former players from both sides. But one who almost certainly won’t be present is a player with a solid claim to having been the greatest Iranian footballer in history. Because Ali Karimi is a wanted man.
The 44-year-old is hugely influential in Iran – he has 13 million social media followers there. But he has positioned himself as such an overt critic of the country’s regime that he’s now living in exile, threatened with arrest – and worse – should he return to or be forcibly taken back to Iran.
An equivalent situation here might involve one of those twin politically-minded Garys, Neville and Lineker, going fully revolutionary to lead a popular insurrection and threatened with death. So how did he get here?
Karimi was an extraordinarily exciting player, so much so that he was nicknamed ‘The Asian Maradona’ – and ‘The Magician’. Whereas
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