Tehran, YJC. Iran Polo Federation head has said Chogan (polo) is an Iranian sport and other countries’ claims on it has no basis in fact.
Hamzeh Ilkhanizadeh said "Iran’s history and culture is
a solid evidence to confirm Chogan (polo) as a Persian sport, and other
countries’ attempts to register it as their own will not alter the facts.”
In regard to Azerbaijan’s claim that Polo is their
national team, Ilkhanizadeh remarked "this claim is wrong and not true at all.”
He noted that a country in which polo is not even
played cannot hold any claims over this traditional Persian sport and explained
"In the past, a kind of polo was played in a part of Karabakh in Azerbaijan
which used to belong to Iran’s territory at the time, while this sport had been
played in many parts of Iran way before that.”
Ilkhanizadeh said "in collaboration with the Cultural
Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization of Iran, we have attempted to
globally register polo as an Iranian sport and hope to see the development of
this traditional sport in our own country.”
"We have currently 7 polo pitches in Tehran &
Alborz Province and a new pitch will soon be constructed in Isfahan,” said he.
"There are about 150 polo players in Iran, but this is a very small population
and we are attempting to increase the number of players in this sport field.”
Chogan (Persian for Polo) is a team sport played on
horseback in which the objective is to score goals against an opposing team by
driving a small white plastic or wooden ball into the opposing team's goal
using a long-handled mallet. Chogan was first played in Iran at dates given
from the 4th century in Persian Emperor Shapur II of the Sassanid dynasty era.
From Persia, in medieval times, polo spread to other countries and it is now
played around the world.