As controversy erupted over Iran\u2019s first match of the AFC Women\u2019s Asian Cup against South Korea in the Gold Coast where players did not sing the Islamic Republic\u2019s national anthem\u2014 Shirmardi said it led to numerous threats from a presenter on Iran\u2019s state television and others in Iran.<\/p>\n
During the second and third matches against Australia and the Philippines, Shirmardi claims players were forced to perform a military salute and loudly sing the Islamic Republic\u2019s anthem.<\/p>\n
Iranian expatriates in Queensland gathered outside the national team\u2019s hotel, asking them to stay.<\/p>\n
When five players from Iran\u2019s women\u2019s national football team managed to separate from the team convoy and presented themselves to the police it led to increased threats.<\/p>\n
Shirmardi said a photograph emerged of Zahra Ghanbari, the captain of Iran\u2019s women\u2019s football team, along with Fatemeh Pasandideh, Zahra Sarbani, Mona Hamoudi, and Atefeh Ramezani, smiling and without mandatory hijab next to Tony Burke, Australia\u2019s Minister for Home Affairs and Immigration.<\/p>\n
This, Shirmardi said, encouraged other players to also try to escape.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spoke with the players who were still at the hotel after this happened. They were very frightened,\u201d Shirmardi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir phones had been taken away, and they were threatened that the players who had fled would soon be brought back. They were also told that the authorities had the addresses of the families of the separated players and would ruin them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis terrified them. After that, even at night their room doors had to remain open by force and they were checked constantly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The departure of the five players led the Iranian team convoy to consider leaving Australia \u2014 though to an unknown destination.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though the travel plan was unclear, the morning after the five players separated, the remaining players were suddenly told that we were leaving. But they did not say where or when. They were only asked to pack their belongings and go to the airport.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Shirmardi said it took many efforts to allow female journalists in Iran\u2019s stadiums, and female spectators soon followed, but men and women still must sit separately.<\/p>\n
The women\u2019s football team convoy headed to Gold Coast Airport amid gatherings of Iranian expatriates from Queensland. Iranians blocked the national team bus and even lay on the ground to stop it from moving, but eventually the team left for the airport.<\/p>\n
Shortly after arriving at the airport, news came that two more team members had separated.<\/p>\n
\u201cMahdeseh Zolfi\u00a0and\u00a0Zahra Meshkinkar, members of the team\u2019s logistics staff, also decided to remain in Australia. They joined the five separated players.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis time, news emerged that Golnoush Khosravi and Afsaneh Chatrnor were also planning to leave. However, the situation had changed. Security became stricter, and photos even showed that Afsaneh\u2019s hand was being held while boarding the bus.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team arrived in Sydney in order to travel from there to Malaysia.<\/p>\n
\u201cA large number of Iranians went to Sydney Airport and watched every moment as the players got off the plane and boarded the bus, \u201d Shirmardi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt one point, one of the players flashed the light of her phone, which worried the Iranians because they thought the players might need help. They spoke with the police to try to prevent the players from leaving and also delivered a message from Golnoush\u2019s mother. Golnoush\u2019s mother had said: tell my daughter to stay and not come.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring that time, I spoke with Golnoush, Afsaneh, and even\u00a0Marzieh Jafari, the team\u2019s head coach. Golnoush and Afsaneh did not want to stay.<\/p>\n
\u201cGolnoush could not leave because she had no one but her mother and could not leave her alone. Afsaneh initially wanted to stay but soon regretted it. She said my heart would not allow me to separate because I could not bear being away from my family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marzieh Jafari, the head coach of the women\u2019s team, who was very exhausted, told Shirmardi that she could not talk and that she was extremely tired.<\/p>\n
Soon after, the team travelled to Kuala Lumpur, where more Iranians gathered at Kuala Lumpur Airport to try to prevent them from returning to Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not think anyone would go to the airport in Kuala Lumpur, but many Iranians had gone there and were shouting: \u2018Afsaneh, your mother said stay!\u2019 Afsaneh replied immediately: \u2018I know, but I have no plan to stay.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The team returned to a hotel in Kuala Lumpur and stayed there for two weeks before returning to Iran, but the controversies in Australia continued.<\/p>\n
Mehdi Taj, the head of the Islamic Republic Football Federation, said in an interview that Australia had taken the women\u2019s national team players hostage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is really surprising to me that he said that. If it was a hostage situation, why didn\u2019t all of them stay, and why were those who stayed so happy?\u201d Shirmardi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso,\u00a0Mahdeseh Zolfi, who quickly regretted staying in Australia, was supposed to soon rejoin the team convoy in Malaysia. So bringing up the idea of hostage-taking is strange and frankly laughable.\u201d<\/p>\n
After what happened to Iran\u2019s women\u2019s football team, concerns about the men\u2019s national team increased. They were scheduled to participate in the World Cup in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cMehdi Taj apparently became anxious that this time the players of the men\u2019s national team might seek asylum. That is why he raised this issue,\u201d Shirmardi said.<\/p>\n
After that, Ahmad Donyamali, the Minister of Sport and Youth of the Islamic Republic, announced that under these conditions, they would prefer not to participate in the World Cup being held in the \u2018aggressor country,\u2019 the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis statement drew interesting reactions. Some Iranians believe that because the Islamic Republic might fall by that time, they made such a decision in advance so that afterwards a team called \u2018Iran\u2019\u2014not the Islamic Republic of Iran\u2014would not participate in the competitions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite all these events, controversies and threats regarding Iran\u2019s women\u2019s football team continue. The prosecutor of the Islamic Republic announced that it would be better for the players to return in order to ease their families\u2019 concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis message sounded like a threat. Perhaps that is why Mahdeseh Zolfi quickly regretted her decision, because she thought something might happen to her family because of these statements. Meanwhile, Taj and Donyamali described the players who did not seek asylum as heroes,\u201d Shirmardi said.<\/p>\n
But Shirmardi thinks that despite these threats, players who sought asylum were unlikely to regret their decision.<\/p>\n
She listed supportive statements from Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong, Minister Tony Burke, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, a US Democratic senator and others. Billionaire Clive Palmer announced in an interview that he would give money to the asylum-seeking players to help them start their lives in Australia and called on other wealthy individuals to join this donation.<\/p>\n
As war rages in the Middle East, every week, Samira Shirmardi joins a community of Iranians in front of Parliament House in North Terrace to show their support for the people of her country.<\/p>\n
Shirmardi worked as a reporter for Iranian publications, including Iran Varzeshi and Gol, for almost 20 years, covering football and wrestling. She now lives in South Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As intense discussions emerged over some Iranian women\u2019s football team members seeking asylum in Australia, Adelaide-based journalist Samira…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-536685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}