KUALA LUMPUR: Iranian artist and poster designer Behnam Raeesian has nothing against football. Yet as fans cheer for their favourite teams competing in the Fifa World Cup, his latest poster series provides a grim reality of the world’s most celebrated tournament.
Titled ‘Bread and Football’, the critical poster series aims to examine football as a global spectacle shaped by power, distraction, and controlled emotion. Through seven minimal visual metaphors, the project questions how the World Cup can move beyond sport and become a mechanism of mass attention – a beautiful trap, a ritual applause, a toxic atmosphere, a controlled signal, and a diversion that silences other urgent realities.
“The inspiration (of Bread and Football) came from my concern with wrong patterns that slowly become traditions,” Raeesian told Twentytwo13.
“I have never been against football itself. I respect the game, the emotion, and the joy people find in it. But I question what happens when football becomes more than a game – when it becomes a curtain for politics, power, and distraction.
“Bread and Football is not against football. It is against the machine that turns joy into obedience,” he added.
The Bread and Football series by Raeesian. From left: The Beautiful Trap, Toxic Match, and Diversion.
Born in 1991 in Sari, Mazandaran Province, Iran, Raeesian said that although he is Iranian, his concerns had always been beyond borders.
“I do not speak only from one country. I speak against systems of violence, corruption, censorship, and suppression that can exist anywhere. These forces may look different in different places, but their roots are often similar.
“Borders separate countries, but pain, fear, and truth do not need a passport. Of course, being Iranian has shaped the way I see the world. I come from a region where politics is not abstract; it enters ordinary life.
“But my intention is not to create nationalist work. My intention is to create human work – work that can speak to anyone who has experienced silence, pressure, or manipulation.”
For nearly two decades, Raeesian’s path in visual art was connected to questioning, observing, and responding to the world around him. To him, poster design is not only about aesthetics; it is a way to compress an idea, a wound, or a protest into one image.
“When sport is used to cover violence, war, corruption, or suppression, silence becomes part of the problem. Visual artists may not have political power, but they have visual power. They can disturb the image, break the comfort, and make people look again.
“Sportswashing is not only about cleaning an image. It is about teaching people where not to look. My message to other artists is simple: do not let beauty become a servant of silence. If an image can sell a lie, an image can also expose it.”
The US has finally signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran, aimed at ending the war in the Middle East. On Feb 28, Israel and the US launched joint attacks on Tehran and other Iranian cities.
Iran responded with waves of missile and drone attacks targeting Israel and US bases and assets in the region, and tightened its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, barring safe passage of vessels belonging to or affiliated with Israel and the United States. This caused massive economic uncertainties around the world, including Southeast Asia.
Iran’s football team played their opening Fifa World Cup 2026 match against New Zealand at Los Angeles Stadium. While both teams settled for a 2-2 draw, Iran were forced to quickly return to their base camp in Tijuana, Mexico, some 200-odd km away.
Several members of Iran’s football delegation were forced to watch the match in Mexico as they were unable to secure visas to enter the US.
Gianni Infantino met the Iranian footballers in the dressing room after the match against New Zealand, but it remains to be seen if the Fifa president will manage to convince Donald Trump’s administration to allow every member of the Iranian team to be stationed in the US instead to cut down on travel time.
Raeesian said the main goal of his project is to highlight the political use of collective emotion, entertainment, and spectacle in football.
“Football is a global language, so it gives me powerful symbols to question larger systems,” he said.
“This series currently has seven works and is complete for now. I will move to other projects, but if I feel the message has not been heard strongly enough, I may return to it with a more direct visual language. Entertainment becomes dangerous when it starts working as anaesthesia.”
Raeesian first entered the world of art through music. In the beginning, music was his way of dealing with emotions, pressures, and things he could not easily understand or explain.
“But over time, I felt I needed a sharper language, a form that could confront the questions in my mind more directly. That is how I moved towards visual art and poster design.”
He said poster design gave him something music could not: the ability to turn silence into an image.
“For me, a poster is not just a design object; it is a compressed scream. It can say what cannot be said out loud, and it can enter the eye before censorship reaches the mouth.”
He attributed his success to his family.
“Working with political and social subjects in a closed and limited environment comes with many difficulties and risks. Their support has helped me continue, even when the path was difficult.”
Raeesian said young and upcoming artists ought to learn how to see before they learn how to impress.
“Technique is important, but honesty is more important. A young artist should not only ask, ‘Is this beautiful?’ They should ask, ‘Is this necessary?’
“The world does not need more decorative images. It needs honest images. Young artists should spend less time trying to look original and more time learning how to observe.
“Many powerful ideas are hidden in things everybody sees but nobody questions. Even a simple line can become powerful when it comes from a real wound, a real question, or a real truth,” he added.