{"id":538777,"date":"2026-03-15T21:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T21:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/538777\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T21:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T21:38:09","slug":"iranian-soccer-captain-to-return-to-iran-withdraws-bid-for-asylum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/538777\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranian soccer captain to return to Iran, withdraws bid for asylum"},"content":{"rendered":"

The captain<\/a> of the Iranian women\u2019s soccer team says she will return to Iran. According to\u00a0IRNA News Agency, Zahra Ghanbari, 34, is on her way back to Iran \u2014 withdrawing her bid for asylum from Australia.<\/p>\n

She is reportedly \u201creturning to the embrace of the homeland\u201d\u00a0according to IRNA. This made her the fifth player from the team to change her mind about competing.<\/p>\n

In an interview with\u00a0Fox News<\/a>,\u00a0a councillor for the Australian city of Ryde suggested the player\u2019s families were being used as leverage to get the women home.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI know families have even been detained. I know family members are missing,\u201d Tina Kordrostami said.<\/p>\n

Australia\u00a0granted asylum\u00a0to six players and a support staff member on the soccer team<\/a>. They\u00a0were in the country for the AFC Women\u2019s Asia cup when war broke out in\u00a0Iran.<\/p>\n

The decision comes after\u00a0Iranian\u00a0groups in\u00a0Australia\u00a0and\u00a0President\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0urged the government to offer them protection.<\/p>\n

The team drew global attention earlier this month when the players refused to sing\u00a0Iran\u2019s\u00a0national anthem before their first match in\u00a0Australia. Iranian state media later branded them \u201ctraitors,\u201d calling the move\u00a0\u201cthe pinnacle of dishonor.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Iranian soccer team\u00a0arrived in Australia<\/a>\u00a0for the tournament before the Iran war began on Feb. 28. The team was knocked out of the tournament over the weekend and faced returning to a country at war.<\/p>\n

Head Coach Marziyeh Jafari said Sunday the players \u201cwant to come back to Iran as soon as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

At one point protesters tried to block a bus\u00a0reportedly carrying\u00a0members of the team from their hotel. Local media\u00a0reported\u00a0the team later boarded a flight from\u00a0Gold Coast Airport.<\/p>\n

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Some of the protesters chanted \u201cSave our girls\u201d and \u201cPlease act now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing I really would like for people in the West to understand is that Iranians within the country have in many ways given up on the West, and they are only relying on one another to survive this regime,\u201d Kordrostami said. \u201cSo, when we do offer them a way out, it\u2019s not often that easy for them to understand that it is in fact a way out. They are more so used to relying on one another and this is survival for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The captain of the Iranian women\u2019s soccer team says she will return to Iran. According to\u00a0IRNA News Agency,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-538777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}