{"id":331873,"date":"2026-03-10T15:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T15:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/331873\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T15:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T15:34:11","slug":"five-iranian-footballers-granted-australian-visas-after-anthem-protest-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/331873\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Iranian footballers granted Australian visas after anthem protest \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia<\/a> has granted humanitarian visas to five Iranian<\/a> female soccer players who sought asylum, citing fears for their safety after the team declined to sing the national anthem during a match on the Gold Coast last week.<\/p>\n

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday that the government is willing to provide similar assistance to the rest of the Iranian women\u2019s team, the Lionesses, noting \u201cthis is a very delicate situation and it is up to them\u201d to decide.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we say to them, if you want our help, help is here and we will provide that.\u201d<\/p>\n

US president Donald Trump had earlier weighed in, urging Albanese to grant the players refuge, before saying the Australian leader was doing \u201ca very good job\u201d handling the situation.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s campaign ended on Sunday with a 2\u20130 defeat to the Philippines, leaving players facing uncertainty about returning to Iran amid an escalating conflict in their homeland. <\/p>\n

Iranian state television labelled the players traitors, according to reports<\/a>, after they remained silent during the national anthem before their opening loss to South Korea on March 2nd.<\/p>\n

The team sang the anthem and saluted in later matches.<\/p>\n

Craig Foster, a former captain of Australia\u2019s men\u2019s football team and now a prominent advocate for refugee rights and marginalised communities, said he had expected the Asian Football Confederation to intervene, but that did not happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very clear that at least some, if not all, of the women were being placed in an environment of coercion, silencing and a lack of safety and a lack of security and very high risk,\u201d Foster said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen this too often with women athletes across a whole range of sports and particularly in football,\u201d Foster said. \u201cIt\u2019s clear we don\u2019t have the systems and protocols in place to ensure any of these women could have made a SOS claim, if you like, through a trusted and confidential and private source.\u201d<\/p>\n

Foster said the situation had reached a point where the Australian government felt compelled to step in given the clear risks involved. <\/p>\n

He noted a long pattern of systematic persecution of high-profile athletes who have spoken out against the Iranian government, documented over many years by groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.<\/p>\n

That history, he said, was why there had been deep concern for the group. He added that government intervention ensured five of the women were able not only to understand their rights, but to act on them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe urgent and immediate situation today is to ensure the rest of the group are not removed from Australia before having an opportunity to understand their rights and to make a personal decision about whether they would like to exercise them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australian home affairs minister Tony Burke told reporters discussions about the visas began in the early hours of Monday morning and intensified over the course of the day, when it became clear that five women were seeking to remain in Australia.<\/p>\n

The Australian Federal Police moved them to a secure location, where Burke met them later that evening. He approved their transition to humanitarian visas, with the department of home affairs finalising the processing shortly after 1:30am on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI say to the other members of the team, the same opportunity is there,\u201d Burke said. \u201cAustralia has taken the Iranian women\u2019s soccer team into our hearts. These women are tremendously popular in Australia, but we realise they are in a terribly difficult situation with the decisions that they\u2019re making.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burke said it is possible \u2013 and even likely \u2013 that not all of the women will choose to accept the offer to remain in Australia. He said the priority is ensuring they have full agency in making their decisions, with access to support and assistance available to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to begin to imagine how difficult that decision is for each of the individual women,\u201d Burke said. \u201cBut certainly, last night, it was joy, it was relief and people were very excited about embarking on a life in Australia.\u201d \u2013 Bloomberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia has granted humanitarian visas to five Iranian female soccer players who sought asylum, citing fears for their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[33147,972,54,85,87,46,105,5431],"class_list":["post-331873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-anthony-albanese","tag-australia","tag-donald-trump","tag-il","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-sports","tag-women-in-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331873","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=331873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}