What it is
باشگاه پرسپولیس (Bâshgâh-e Persepolis) is a Tehran football club founded in 1963. The name was chosen by founder Ali Abdo after the ancient Achaemenid capital, the same city the Greeks called Persepolis (تخت جمشید, Takht-e Jamshid, in modern Persian usage). The shirts are red. The home stadium is Azadi, shared with Esteghlal, capacity 78,000 and the largest in West Asia. As of 2024 the club has won the Iranian top division fifteen times, the most in league history, and three of those titles came in a row from 2017 to 2019 under coach Branko Ivanković.
The fan base
Persepolis is the team of the working-class south of Tehran in the simple narrative, though the actual fan base cuts across class and crosses the country. The supporters call themselves قرمزها (qermez-hâ, the reds), and the loudest section of Azadi is the southern stand. The chants are notoriously inventive; one of the most printable is “پرسپولیس قهرمان,” Persepolis the champion.
The derby
The match against Esteghlal is the داربی پایتخت (dârbi-ye pâytakht, the capital derby), the biggest football fixture in Asia by viewership. Both clubs play out of Azadi, both fan bases cover the country. Tickets for the derby are gone in hours. The match has been played more than ninety times in the modern league era; Persepolis leads the head-to-head narrowly.
How to use it
man havadar-e persepolis hastam.
I’m a Persepolis supporter.
من هوادار پرسپولیس هستم.
persepolis emsal ham qahreman shod.
Persepolis became champion again this year.
پرسپولیس امسال هم قهرمان شد.
In context
Persepolis is one of those Iranian institutions that the regime tried for years to fold into its system (state ownership, IRGC-linked sponsors, presidential appointments to the board) and never quite managed to. The fan culture stayed louder than the politics. People who agree on nothing else agree that Persepolis is their club. Iranian players who came up through the academy and went abroad include Mehdi Mahdavikia, Karim Bagheri (the captain of the 1998 Iran-USA squad), and Vahid Hashemian. The club academy is one of the most productive in Asia at the youth-international level.
References
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