Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cWhile the Australian government can ensure that opportunities are provided and communicated, we cannot remove the context in which the players are making these incredibly difficult decisions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Shiva Amini, a former Iranian national futsal team player and human rights activist, said she believed Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guard Corps – Tehran\u2019s paramilitary defenders of the 1979 revolution – had pressured the families of players who\u2019d chosen to stay in Australia.<\/p>\n
She claimed the family of captain Zahra Ghanbari, the latest player to choose to return to Iran, had been explicitly targeted.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, a number of the players are still there. They are under enormous pressure and they urgently need support and protection,\u201d she said.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amini alleged a team official \u201cwho presented themselves to the players as someone they could trust and rely on, they were able to persuade some of the players to return\u201d.<\/p>\n
But Australian government sources say this allegation had been investigated and could not be substantiated.<\/p>\n
A member of the Iranian-Australian diaspora, who asked not to be named, said reports out of Iran suggested members of the team staff had been relaying messages from the Iranian government to the players who\u2019d chosen to stay in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey also reported that their families were threatened and even some voice messages by their families were played for the football players to convince them to go back,\u201d the diaspora member said.<\/p>\n
The diaspora source also said they believed the intervention of US president Donald Trump was acutely unhelpful to the players facing an invidious choice.<\/p>\n
Last week, Trump took to social media to loudly pressure Australia into accepting the Iranian players, even though the home affairs minister had already signed off on their visas.<\/p>\n
But the high-profile presidential intervention backed the Iranian regime into a corner, the source said, incentivising it to put pressure on the women to return to Iran, as a political victory over the US.<\/p>\n
Other Iranian athlete defections in other countries – unnoticed by the US president – have attracted far less regime attention.<\/p>\n
The Tasnim News Agency, a state-run organisation closely allied to the Revolutionary Guards – has been celebrating the return of players who had chosen to accept humanitarian visas to stay in Australia.<\/p>\n
Tasnim said the players had \u201cabandoned their asylum applications in Australia, and\u2026 heading toward the warm embrace of their families and nation\u201d.<\/p>\n
It reported the players\u2019 \u201cpatriotic decision\u201d was \u201cdriven by deep loyalty to the homeland and the Iranian flag\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe unwavering national pride and patriotism of Iran\u2019s female national football players have thwarted the sinister schemes of enemies targeting the team,\u201d Tasnim said.<\/p>\n
The reportage praised the women for choosing to return home \u201cover alluring temptations\u201d, and said their decision to choose Iran was a \u201ccrushing blow to the US president, who overtly spearheaded this initiative\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reversal by these\u2026 Iranian national female footballers from their fleeting choice, returning to Iran amidst the imposed war and the nation\u2019s endurance, represents a profound victory embodying patriotism, infinite devotion to Iran, and the resilience of courageous daughters of Iran who aligned with their people at a pivotal historical moment, securing an enduring legacy for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Monday morning government minister Catherine King told ABC radio that \u201cboth Tony Burke and Australia can be really proud\u201d to have offered the women \u201cgenuine choices\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had every opportunity to know that they were safe and welcome here,\u201d she said. \u201c[The decision] must have been incredibly hard \u2026 they would have been facing enormous pressure.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, it\u2019s their choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team left a Gold Coast hotel on Tuesday afternoon under police guard with one player appearing to be pulled by a teammate onto a bus.<\/p>\n
There are fears for the rest of the team\u2019s safety on their return to Iran after they were labelled \u201cwartime traitors\u201d on Iranian state media for refusing to sing the national anthem before their opening match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The captain of the Iranian women\u2019s football squad has left Australia after withdrawing her claim of asylum. Zahra…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-539429","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\/539429","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=539429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}