A kid from Iran this week won 1 million dirhams — or $272,000 — for playing video games.

Maybe that will make his mother back off with all those “and who will pay you to play video games?” complaints.

Turns out, the government here in the UAE will pay him — for winning a big video soccer tournament — titled the Million Player — staged during Ramadan.

The young man’s name is (more or less) Moeen Amozadeh. (The organizers pronounced it, over the phone, to a reporter, at The National, and left us to figure out how to render it in English for this story and photo. The winner is the guy not wearing a kandura.)

The competition originally included the Al Ain and UAE national team midfielder Omar Abdulrahman, the top Emirati footballer, at the moment. But not the top soccer video-gamer in the country, it would seem, as our columnist, Ali Khaled deduced a week ago.

The video champion would be Moeen Amozadeh who, given the difficult international relations between the UAE and Iran, probably already is living here in the UAE. And playing a lot of Pro Evolution Soccer, the particular form of video soccer used in the tournament — and played on PlayStation 3 equipment.

The final was played on Sunday at Ferrari World on Yas Island, site of Abu Dhabi’s Formula One race track.

The Iranian guy chose to play using Real Madrid’s team; the other finalist, an Emirati named Abdullah Saleh Mubarak, used Barcelona. (The clasico; it cannot be escaped.)

Apparently, a significant chunk of competitors played with Real Madrid, during this tournament, and if I understand this correctly this was the 2011-12 Madrid — the group that won the Spanish League, beating out Barcelona. Not the 2012-13 season, during which Barcelona was clearly better. (And, it turns out, Cristiano Ronaldo, circa 2011-12, at least the Pro Evolution version, is significantly better than Lionel Messi.)

Someone put most/all of the match on video, which can be viewed here, if you want to see the players reacting to the guidance of the guys using their thumbs. Seems pretty slick.

It was 6-6 at the end of regulation, and in extra time the Iranian guy/Real Madrid got two more goals, by Karim Benzema and Ronaldo to win, 8-6.

The runner-up didn’t go home empty-handed — he got 300,000 dirhams, which is $81,600, and the guy who finished third got $27,200.

They are talking about making this an annual event. If so, a player from outside the UAE might be interested in coming over and taking a crack at the the million dirhams. Real money, and all that.