TRACTOR FC: THE GEOPOLITICAL IDENTITY STRONGHOLD OF SOUTH AZERBAIJAN
In modern political science and international relations, sport is no longer regarded merely as a field of entertainment or competition, but rather as one of the most powerful arenas for the expression of suppressed collective identities, political demands, and ethnic mobilization. In the northwestern region of the Islamic Republic of Iran known as South Azerbaijan, Tractor Football Club (formerly Tractor Sazi FC) has gone far beyond being a conventional football team and has become the “national” representative of a people and the principal platform of their civil rights struggle. Based in Tabriz, this club functions as a resistance anthem reflecting the collective will of a population of nearly 40 million against the centralist and Persian-centric assimilation policies pursued by the Iranian state for decades.
