This is a guest post by Igor
Sky News reports that Presidents Ahmadinejad of Iran and Morales of Bolivia played a 5-a-side football match in Tehran, before a summit meeting between the two. Sky has short highlights of the match, from the Iranian state broadcaster IRIB. Ahmadinejad looks pretty useful, if a little slow around the pitch.
He wouldn’t be the first politician to use sport to show the common touch. Tony Blair, famously, enjoyed a kick around. If this short clip is anything to go by, we are lucky he is not facing Ahmadinejad in a penalty shoot-out to decide whether Iran should have nuclear weapons:
Sporting play-offs between world leaders would be an interesting way to settle political disputes. George Bush clearly fancied himself as a golfer, as anyone who remembers this press conference-cum-golf round will testify:
But it is a good job he never challenged Kim Jong-Il to a round, if the North Korean media is to be believed.
Pyongyang media say Kim enjoys golf, having shot multiple holes-in-one during his first try at the game. He reportedly aced five holes and finished 38 under par on the golf course. The “Dear Leader” routinely shoots three or four holes-in-one per round, the government-controlled media reported.
Sadly, video footage of Kim’s historic round does not seem to exist.
But it is not all one-way traffic for the supporters of anti-Imperialism. Fidel Castro came off worse in this clash with France’s greatest ever footballer, and has been a changed man ever since: