Iran women’s football team feted in Tehran after asylum battle at Asian Cup

Iran’s national football team returned to their war-torn nation after several of the players sought asylum in Australia.

Iranian football players celebrated in Tehran
Iranian authorities on Thursday gave the national women’s football team a hero’s welcome after their return from Australia, where some had made and then withdrawn asylum claims, amid accusations Iran had pressured their families.

Six players and one backroom staff member who travelled to Australia for the Women’s Asian Cup sought asylum earlier this month after they prompted criticism from hardliners in Iran for failing to sing the national anthem before their first match.

Activists have accused Iranian authorities of pressuring the women’s families, including summoning their parents for interrogation, while Tehran has alleged that Australia sought to force the athletes to defect.

Several thousand people, many holding Iranian flags, turned out for the welcome ceremony on Thursday evening in Valiasr Square in central Tehran, where other pro-government rallies have taken place in recent weeks, state TV images showed.

Iranian government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani, one of the most high-profile women in Iranian politics, told the team members: “All Iranians were waiting for you; welcome to Iran.”
As onlookers cheered the players, giant AI-generated images of the women were projected on a screen showing them pledging loyalty to the Iranian flag against a background of Iranian national landmarks.

“The regime in Iran started threatening their families and basically took their families hostage.

Because of that, they were forced to withdraw their asylum and go back to Iran,” Shiva Amini, a former Iranian national football player, who now lives in exile and campaigns on women’s rights, wrote on social media.

But Farideh Shojaei, an Iranian football official who travelled to Australia, said the players had been offered “houses, cars, money, promises of contracts with professional clubs, as well as humanitarian visas”.

“Fortunately, the members of our team valued their national identity above all else and turned these offers down,” she told Iranian media.

Before their opening game, the Iranian team fell silent as the national anthem played, although they later sang it in subsequent matches.

An Iranian state TV presenter branded the players “wartime traitors”.

A central feature of the welcome ceremony in Tehran was singing the national anthem of the Islamic Republic, with players and officials joining in.