{"id":329951,"date":"2026-03-09T14:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T14:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/329951\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T14:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T14:27:09","slug":"five-iran-women-soccer-players-defect-with-help-of-police-following-asian-cup-in-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/329951\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Iran Women soccer players defect with help of police following Asian Cup in Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five players have defected from the Iran women\u2019s soccer team and are being cared for in a safe house operated by the Australian Federal Police.<\/p>\n

Sources with direct knowledge of the event, speaking anonymously due to the ongoing danger faced by the squad, say that the operation occurred after Iran\u2019s final match of the Asian Women\u2019s Cup against the Philippines in Australia, with police assisting the five individuals in leaving the hotel early on Monday evening local time.<\/p>\n

Sources added that the team had been made aware of their options by Australian government representatives earlier in the week. It was discovered that the five players were missing at the team\u2019s scheduled dinner on Monday.<\/p>\n

Following the United States-Israeli strikes on Iran and ensuing retaliation and military operations in the Middle East, the Iranian women\u2019s side were labelled \u201cwartime traitors\u201d by state TV and seemingly threatened with repercussions on their return to the country after failing to sing the national anthem in their opening Asian Cup match.<\/p>\n

The Athletic reported earlier on Monday<\/a> that urgent talks had been taking place between FIFA, the Asian Football Confederation \u2014 which organises the tournament \u2014 and the Australian government over whether it was possible to extend the Iranian team\u2019s stay in the country for their own safety.<\/p>\n

Though a journey was expected to be complex owing to airspace restrictions in the Middle East, the Iranian team had been due to leave the Gold Coast on Monday, having played their final match against the Philippines on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Iran have been competing in the Asian Women\u2019s Cup in Australia since before the latest escalation of the war in the Middle East, arriving immediately before Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed by a joint U.S.-Israel mission on February 28.<\/p>\n

The team did not sing the national anthem in their opening game against South Korea on March 2, in what appeared to be a protest against the Iranian regime. The men\u2019s team did the same ahead of their opening game of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The women\u2019s team sang the anthem and performed a military salute in both their following games, losses to Australia and the Philippines.<\/p>\n

\"Iranian<\/p>\n

\n The Iranian team saluted and sang the anthem in their second and third group-stage matches at the Asian Cup (Albert Perez\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me just say one thing: traitors during wartime must be dealt with more severely,\u201d presenter Mohammad Reza Shahbazi said on state television in footage verified by The Athletic. \u201cAnyone who takes a step against the country under war conditions must be dealt with more severely.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike this matter of our women\u2019s football team not singing the national anthem, and that photo that was published and so on, which I won\u2019t get into. These people must be dealt with more severely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sources added that fears over the team\u2019s safety have led to discussions at a governmental level over the weekend, with FIFA and the AFC both contributing to the talks.<\/p>\n

The AFP did not comment when contacted by The Athletic. FIFA, the Iranian Football Federation, the Australian government and the AFC have also been approached.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five players have defected from the Iran women\u2019s soccer team and are being cared for in a safe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[162811,42,49849,87,43,2619,19711,40,38,41,39,46593],"class_list":{"0":"post-329951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-fifa-womens-world-cup","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-international-football","11":"tag-iran","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-premier-league","14":"tag-soccer","15":"tag-top-news","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-topnews","18":"tag-topstories","19":"tag-womens-soccer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}