The kindness and support which so many members of the Scottish football community, including no less a figure than Tommy Burns, showed Pedram Ardalany when he first came to this country from Iran as a teenager in the early 2000s are now being repaid in kind.
Ardalany, who spent spells at Kilmarnock, Celtic and Queen’s Park as a youth and later went on to turn out for Partick Thistle, Arthurlie, Arbroath and Cumbernauld Colts, is currently doing his coaching qualifications. He has his UEFA C Licence and is on course to gain his B Licence later this year.
He put what he has learned to date to practical use as the kids at the MOBO Sports Academy – the soccer school which former St Mirren, Blackburn Rovers, Livingston, Sheffield Wednesday and Falkirk midfielder Burton O’Brien runs – trained at the Loretto playing fields in Bishopbriggs last Sunday morning.
“I wasn’t really interested in becoming a coach,” said Ardalany in his broad Glaswegian accent afterwards. “It was my wife and my friend who pushed me to do it. But I have enjoyed it. It has been brilliant actually.
“I am picking up a lot from Burton. He is so, so good at it. Working with children can be tricky. It has to be fun for them because they can get bored easily. But you have to get them all involved and that can be interesting at times when they are charging about all over the place as kids do.”
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The session doubtless provided Ardalany with a welcome distraction from the escalating war in his homeland, where his mother and his sister still live, and helped to take his mind off, for a few hours at least, what millions of his countrymen and women are going through.
He became emotional as he talked about the brutal, authoritarian, oppressive, fundamentalist Islamic Republic regime which is desperately trying to cling on to power amid daily bombardments from Israeli and United States forces.
Tears welled in his eyes as he catalogued the despised regime’s heinous human rights abuses, mass murder of dissidents, backing of proscribed terrorist organisations in the region and large-scale financial corruption.
He grew animated as he spoke about the sadness he feels about the members of his national football team, the side he dreamed of playing for one day when he was a boy growing up in Tehran, staying silent about the plight of their fans and stressed he will be unconcerned if, as looks inevitable, they are absent from the World Cup this summer.
Yet, Ardalany was clearly happy to be giving something back to a sport which he owes so much to. Playing football helped him to overcome the many challenges which he encountered as a refugee in Scotland and ultimately enabled him to integrate into society here.
“I found it hard at first,” he said. “I came here with my father, but I left many members of my family behind in Iran, including my mother and my sister. I didn’t know when I was going to see them again.
“It was 12 or 13 years before I did. My grandmother, who was like a mother to me, passed away during that time. That was not easy for me to deal with. You get emotionally hurt, mentally hurt, by these things. This is part of immigration.
“We lived in the high flats in Sighthill at first. I couldn’t speak English, I didn’t have any friends, I had a tough time. Even when I first joined football clubs, I didn’t really get accepted by the other players because I had a shy personality as well. But I persevered and things improved over time. Being a good player helped me.”
His impressive performances in midfield and on the wing for Arsenal Boys Club attracted the attention of scouts at several professional clubs and he was soon lured away to Kilmarnock.
“I had a good time there,” said Ardalany. “Alan Robertson, a very nice guy, a real gentleman, was their head of youth at that time. He gave me some good early advice. He told me, ‘Don’t stay in Scotland Pedram, you’ll be wasted here’. But I couldn’t move anywhere else because we had just claimed for asylum.
“Fortunately, I was soon asked to join Celtic. Nobody could turn that opportunity down. I was on clouds. It was a huge club with very good players. But I was confident in myself and believed in my quality.”
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There is a mural on a wall inside the Lisbon Lion Stand at Parkhead that was painted by the Green Brigade ultras group a few years ago which reads, “Created by immigrants – refugees welcome”.
Banners echoing that sentiment are regularly held up by fans when the defending Scottish champions, who were formed by a Marist brother in 1887 to raise money for the impoverished Irish in the East End of Glasgow, play their matches.
The toxic right-wing nativism which now contaminates politics in the United Kingdom and is increasingly espoused by many of the less enlightened members of the population has not permeated their support and it never will.
Ardalany, like so many promising footballers who join the former European Cup winners as lads, proved unable to, for reasons which were entirely outwith his control, force his way into the first team. But he has nothing but positive things to say about the way he was embraced.
“I was welcomed at Celtic,” he said. “I could only train with them. I couldn’t get involved in any of their competitive games because I didn’t have a work permit. They couldn’t officially sign me. But I thought I did well.
“It was mostly Willie McStay and Joe McBride who coached us. I always worked hard. One day Willie said to me, ‘We couldn’t get you a work permit Pedram, but we are going to keep you here anyway’.
“Tommy Burns was the head of youth at that time. He is one of the best characters I have ever met in my life. He was so nice to me so he was. He treated me like I was his son in fact. It is something I will always remember. He worked so hard to get me a work permit, he really tried his best for me.
“I stayed at Celtic for about a season. At the end of that time, they said to me, ‘We’re so sorry, we couldn’t get you a work permit. But we’ve spoken to Billy Stark at Queen’s Park so you can go and train with them. When you get your paperwork you can come back’.
“Unfortunately, the Home Office wouldn’t give me the work permit I needed. I still have many questions in my head about that even though many years have passed. It was the first real failure I had suffered in my life. I pretended to be fine, I kept everything inside, but I was mentally ruined.”
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He struggled at Queen’s Park as a direct result of that devastating disappointment and then endured an unhappy spell at Thistle. It was only when he moved on to junior side Arthurlie that he got his mojo back. Mark Cameron, their then manager, remains a source of advice and encouragement to this day.
But it was finally returning to Iran that rekindled his love for football. He had stints at Esteghlal Ahvaz and Rah Ahan and found himself playing alongside and against current members of the national team. However, if his country do end up playing in the World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the United States this summer he will not be tuning in to cheer them on.
The death of a beautiful young Kurdish-Iranian woman called Mahsa Amini – who had been arrested by religious morality police for not wearing her hijab in line with government guidelines and, according to eyewitnesses, savagely beaten in custody – in Tehran in 2022 ignited what became known as the Woman, Life, Freedom movement and led to demonstrations across the country.
The response to the uprising from the Islamic Republic was barbaric. Amnesty International reported that security forces fired live ammunition into groups of protesters and beat many of them to death with batons. It was estimated that 476 people were killed in the purge.
Initially, many of the Iranian players condemned the vicious crackdown. Sardar Azmoun, the former Zenit St Petersburg, Bayer Leverkusen and Roma forward, spoke out publicly. The side wore black jackets over their strips when the Islamic Republic anthem was played before a Qatar 2022 warm-up friendly against Senegal in Austria. They refused to sing the anthem before their opening group game against England.
But their opposition waned and their compatriots, who had always been fanatical in their support of Team Melli, grew deeply disillusioned with men they had once revered. They started referring to them as the “mullahs' team”.
“There has been a lot of animosity towards them,” said Ardalany. “That has never been the case in the entire history of the national team. People had always loved them.
“Amir Nasr Azadani, a defender who had played for Rah Ahan and Tractor, was arrested during the protests in 2022 and sentenced to 26 years in prison. That happened four years ago and nobody has any information about what has happened to him.
“Ali Karimi, the former Bayern Munich and Iran player who was called the Asian Maradona when he played, was living in Dubai at the time and he spoke out against Amini’s death. He was tried by the state in his absence, had his house in Lavasan seized and was allegedly the victim of a kidnapping attempt by the state. He fled to the United States.
“He is a wealthy man and could easily have lived a life of luxury. But he chose to stand with the people and against the regime. He is loved in Iran because of it. He is a legend as much for that as his achievements in football.
“For me and many others, the Iran players should back up the people. But I think they choose to back up what I would argue is a terrorist, extremist regime that has nothing to do with the people, nothing to do with our culture and nothing to do with our history.”
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There is one of his countrymen who he is fully supportive of - Rez Pahlavi.
The 65-year-old was the son of the shah of Iran at the time of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The exiled crown prince has put himself forward as a potential transitional leader until a democratic system can be put in place if the government is toppled.
Ardalany was among a crowd of 300,000 which gathered in Munich last month as Pahlavi condemned the senseless murder of thousands of people who were protesting against the rising cost of living and draconian government rule in Iran.
But the continuing silence of the national team’s players has been deafening.
“I played for Esteghlal Ahvaz and trained with Rah Ahan when I was over in Iran,” he said. “They are very famous clubs who get big crowds and have good fans. I played against Alireza Beiranvand and Ali Alipour, the current Iran goalkeeper and striker, and with Milad Mohammadi, the Iran full-back, at that time.
“But I no longer support the Iranian team. Some of the players now do not have the quality to play at that level, many of them are too old. For me, there are reasons they are involved. I don’t think it is because of their ability. There is huge corruption in the game in Iran. Careers have been ruined by the regime there.
“Rashid Mazaheri, a famous goalkeeper who played for the national team, has been very vocal in his criticism of the regime. He was detained last month over an alleged fraud and his life is now at risk.
“Mojtaba Tarshiz, a well-known midfielder who played with big clubs in Iran, with Esteghlal Ahvaz and Tractor, died during the demonstrations in January. He was with his family, he tried to defend them and he got shot and killed. But the players do still not speak out.
“The sports minister this week said that Iran could not participate in the World Cup. But I think that most people were hoping that Donald Trump refused to give them visas and kicked them out anyway.”
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The treatment of the members of the Iranian women’s team who stayed silent when the anthem was played before their Asian Cup match against South Korea in Australia earlier this month underlines what fate awaits prominent athletes who openly defy the regime.
They were branded “wartime traitors”, a charge which carries the death penalty, on state television. There are fears those players who have returned home will face detention, interrogation and be forced to make public confessions.
Six players involved in the protest claimed asylum and remained behind after being granted humanitarian visas. Their families in Iran have been threatened with punishment.
The Iranian diaspora in Scotland have been out in large numbers in Glasgow in recent weeks. They have marched and demonstrated in the city centre to raise awareness of the plight of their people in the Middle East. They have waved their country’s traditional lion and sun flag as they have done so.
The Israeli and American air strikes have drawn condemnation, including from UN general-secretary Antonio Guterres, across the world. For many, international law is being broken. But Ardalany is praying they bring about the downfall of the Islamic Republic in the coming days.
“The Cyrus Cylinder, the first human rights inscription, which is over 2,000 years old, was once the national symbol of Iran,” he said. “Now people are being killed for fighting for their basic human rights.
“I am not exaggerating when I say this is the biggest moment in our history. As soon as Iran is free from the tyranny of the regime we will book our tickets back. We want to be there when the crown prince returns. It will be very emotional for us.”
Until that time, he will continue to pass on the football knowledge which he picked up from some greats of the Scottish game to the boys at the MOBO Sports Academy.
“They are lovely kids,” he said with a smile. “Many of them are very good players as well. Some of them will definitely make it as pros. The boys in the three to six age group are absolutely hilarious. Every single week, one of them goes out on the pitch, takes a shot at goal and then turns around to his father on the sidelines and shouts, ‘Dad! I want to go home!’”
Going home is an appealing prospect for Pedram Ardalany too.
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