{"id":330403,"date":"2026-03-05T14:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T14:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/330403\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T14:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T14:28:07","slug":"iran-footballers-sing-and-salute-to-anthem-at-asian-cup-after-prior-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/330403\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran footballers sing and salute to anthem at Asian Cup after prior silence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Iranian team arrived in Australia well before the air strikes on their country by the US and Israel began last Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">More than 1,100 Iranian civilians are estimated to have been killed according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.en-hrana.org\/day-five-of-the-u-s-israel-war-on-iran-expansion-of-areas-affected-by-military-strikes\/\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, external<\/a> (HRNA). <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;No-one likes what&#8217;s happening, no-one wants war,&#8221; said head coach Marziyeh Jafari.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In the same news conference however, she insisted Iran have &#8220;come here to play football&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A 4-0 defeat by Australia on Thursday means they now must beat Philippines on Sunday to have a chance of progressing to the knockout stages.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Their approach to the national anthem has matched that taken by the men&#8217;s team at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where they were silent before their first game against England and then sang along before their next match against Wales.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That campaign came against the backdrop of significant domestic protests in Iran over the death of 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini while in police custody.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Before this game, dozens of Iranian-Australians gathered outside the stadium in Gold Coast waving Israeli, Australian and pre-revolution Iranian flags.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Iranian team arrived in Australia well before the air strikes on their country by the US and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-330403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}