Mohammad Reza Zonouzi: The Tractor FC Owner Who Never Strayed Far From Power

Tractor FC won its first Iranian league title in May 2025, after decades of near misses. Its owner, Mohammad Reza Zonouzi Motlagh, likes to present himself as a local boy from a village near Marand who built factories, an airline and, at last, a champion team.

Iranian newspapers have been telling a less flattering story for fifteen years. Read together, their reports describe a fortune that grew fastest when its owner was closest to the state, and a man who has managed to stay near whoever happens to be in charge.

Barbed wire, then banks

Zonouzi was born in 1967 in Zonuz, East Azerbaijan. He and his brothers started small, making barbed wire and metal fencing, then industrial sheds and fuel tankers. By the late 2000s he controlled steel companies around Tabriz, had founded ATA Airlines (2008) and held large stakes in two private banks.

Most Iranians first heard his name in 2011. The country was reeling from a $2.6 billion bank fraud, and Mashregh News ran a piece asking who “the 12,000-billion-toman man” was. Its answer: Zonouzi, said to own around 30% of Tourism Bank, a large share of Saman Bank, part of Iran Khodro’s Tabriz plant and ATA.

The Ahmadinejad connection

That same year the news site Entekhab reported that he had moved into stocks, steel, cars and mining with large bank loans and the help of a well-known state television presenter, whose “advice and rent” it said opened doors. Photos of Zonouzi beside President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad circulated with claims that he could reach the president more easily than some cabinet ministers.

The reformist daily Shargh later laid out what had been reported:

• Amir Abedini called him a close confidant of Ahmadinejad who had worked on his campaign.
• Qods Online reported a 2011 letter giving him a monthly quota of 65,000 tonnes of steel billet from Khuzestan Steel.
• Baztab reported in 2012 that Ahmadinejad had ordered 15,000 billion tomans in state foreign-exchange resources allocated to him.
• When Ahmadinejad’s old Peugeot was auctioned in 2010 for more than 2.5 billion tomans, Zonouzi was named as the buyer. He denied it.

Discounted raw materials, state-priced dollars and generous credit are exactly how fortunes were made in Iran during those years. All three appear in the reporting on Zonouzi.

A debtor who owned the lenders

Tabnak described him as one of Iran’s largest bank debtors. MP Hamid Rasaei put the figure at about 1,200 billion tomans, owed while Zonouzi was also a major shareholder in two banks. That arrangement, in which owners borrow heavily from their own banks, is the same one that later sank several Iranian lenders.

In 2012 he was reportedly detained and released on bail after paying 1,380 billion tomans. Shargh wrote that the judiciary’s spokesman confirmed a detention over “financial matters.” Zonouzi says he was never arrested. No court outcome was ever made public.

How Tractor really changed hands

The official version is that Zonouzi bought 100% of the debt-ridden club in May 2018. This month a former MP, Nader Ghazipour, offered another one. In an interview reported by Iran International and Khabar Varzeshi, he said the Ashura Corps of the Revolutionary Guards had grown tired of paying for Tractor and handed it over through him as a “gift.” He recalled a 1 a.m. call from the corps commander, General Khorram, and said he told Zonouzi to take the club “for the sake of the system and the revolution” so it would stay with “revolutionaries.”

Zonouzi has not directly denied this account.

New president, same table

Masoud Pezeshkian, elected with reformist backing in 2024, is also from Tabriz. Zonouzi turned up at a Pezeshkian meeting at the Central Bank, prompting Tabnak and Fararu to ask what a club owner and former mega-debtor was doing there. Tabnak also ran photos of the president at the memorial for Zonouzi’s wife, and reported that broadcaster Adel Ferdowsipour had made an accusation against Pezeshkian, his son and Zonouzi.

The relationship isn’t uncritical. This month Zonouzi publicly complained that Pezeshkian’s government flew rival Esteghlal to Qatar on a state plane while Tractor spent 18 hours getting to Oman.

Sanctions

On 8 September 2026 the US Treasury designated every active Iranian airline not already under sanctions. “Ata Airlines Company” is on the list. The stated basis is operating in Iran’s aviation sector under Executive Order 13902; Treasury made no specific allegation against ATA and did not name Zonouzi.

Players waiting to be paid

National team goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand said this month that Tractor’s players had been paid roughly 7% of their contracts. The club suspended him. Zonouzi, who travelled with the team to Muscat for an Asian Champions League game, told the squad another 10% would be paid the next day, and is reported to be waiting for Beiranvand’s apology. Earlier disputes include his claim that he secretly paid €600,000 toward Carlos Queiroz’s salary, which led to a federation lawsuit.

The question that remains

Zonouzi calls himself an entrepreneur who has created jobs. Some of that is real. But the public record keeps returning to the same place: state quotas and currency under Ahmadinejad, loans from banks he partly owned, a financial detention that was never explained, a football club reportedly handed over by the Revolutionary Guards, and a seat near Pezeshkian. Governments have come and gone, and Zonouzi has stayed close to each of them. Where the money came from, and who ultimately paid for it, has never been answered.

Quick answers

Who owns Tractor FC?

Mohammad Reza Zonouzi Motlagh, since May 2018.

Is ATA Airlines sanctioned by the US?

Yes, since 8 September 2026, along with other Iranian airlines.

Did the IRGC give Tractor to Zonouzi?

Former MP Nader Ghazipour says so. Officially, it was a share purchase.

Sources

• U.S. Treasury, 8 Sept 2026
• Iran International – Ghazipour interview
• Shargh (republished by Beytoote)
• Tabnak – Zonouzi and Pezeshkian
• Tabnak – Pezeshkian at the memorial
• Entekhab, 2011
• Tabnak – bank debts
• Mehr – Beiranvand dispute

Mr Zonouzi is welcome to respond. Also available in Persian and Turkish.