{"id":323577,"date":"2026-03-11T05:05:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T05:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/323577\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T05:05:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T05:05:07","slug":"fifa-world-cup-iran-hints-men-will-skip-fifa-world-cup-after-women-players-defect-in-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/323577\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifa World Cup: Iran hints men will skip Fifa World Cup after women players defect in Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, at the Women\u2019s Asian Cup in Australia, players from Iran\u2019s team claimed asylum.<\/a><\/p>\n

Five players, including captain Zahra Ghanbari, slipped away from the team hotel under the cover of darkness to claim sanctuary from Australian officials, the Australian Government announced.<\/p>\n

At least two more team members applied to stay later in the day, according to local media.<\/p>\n

Some of the players had been branded \u201cwartime traitors\u201d by Iranian state television after remaining silent during the national anthem before their opening loss to South Korea.<\/p>\n

Every player saluted and sang the anthem before the next two group games.<\/p>\n

\"Iran\u2019sIran\u2019s team pose for a group photo before the AFC Women\u2019s Asian Cup Australia 2026 match between Iran and the Philippines. Photo \/ AFP<\/p>\n

Iran lost both those matches and were eliminated after a defeat to Philippines on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Taj said the players had done their part during the anthem.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur women\u2019s national team sang the national anthem and gave the military salute,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He blamed US President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe US President himself … tweeted two tweets about a women\u2019s team [saying] \u2018we welcome them and that they should become refugees\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe threatened Australia that \u2018if you don\u2019t grant them asylum, I will give them asylum in the US\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow could one be optimistic about the World Cup that is supposed to be held in America?\u201d<\/p>\n

Taj claimed the five women players had been kidnapped and the team had been obstructed as it tried to leave Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the game, unfortunately, the Australian police came and intervened, removing one or two of the players from the hotel, according to the news we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

He made reference to an alleged airstrike on a school in Minab at the start of the war which Iran has blamed on Israel and the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey martyred our girls in Minab, 160 of them, and in this incident they are taking our girls hostage,\u201d Taj said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey did a terrible thing. Last night, some people came and lay down in front of the car they were driving to the airport,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Crowds had gathered outside the Gold Coast stadium for the game against the Philippines, banging drums and shouting \u201cregime change for Iran\u201d, an AFP reporter saw.<\/p>\n

Supporters surrounded the Iranian team bus, chanting \u201clet them go\u201d and \u201csave our girls\u201d.<\/p>\n

Taj said that at the airport the squad had trouble boarding their flight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey completely blocked them at the gate and told everyone to become refugees.\u201d<\/p>\n

What happens if Iran withdraw from Fifa World Cup?<\/p>\n

Iran qualified for the World Cup after topping their group in the third round of Asian qualifying. One possible outcome if Iran withdraw or are banned from the World Cup is their place in Group G is replaced by Iraq, who earned a spot in the Inter-confederation play-offs, which take place later this month.<\/p>\n

As it stands, Iraq will play the winner of Bolivia v Suriname on March 31 for a spot in the Fifa World Cup. <\/p>\n

Iraq beat United Arab Emirates in the fifth round of qualifying, so are the next highest-ranked team in Asia. UAE could instead replace Iraq in that Inter-confederation play-off tournament, with Iraq moving into Group G.<\/p>\n

Fifa has yet to confirm what will happen but is monitoring the situation in Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had the finals draw in Washington in which all teams participated, and our focus is on a safe World Cup with all the teams participating,\u201d Fifa secretary general Mattias Grafstrom said earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will continue to communicate as we always do with three [host] governments as we always do in any case. Everybody will be safe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Tuesday, at the Women\u2019s Asian Cup in Australia, players from Iran\u2019s team claimed asylum. Five players, including…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,6213,85,1558,18920,14056,1887,10542,62564,174645,17890,25293,36862,5213,14724,106,59973,78,296,16609,168147,3605,111,139,69,22388,10702,5415,2687,65259,213,1533,2248,377],"class_list":["post-323577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-after","tag-asian","tag-australia","tag-been","tag-cast","tag-coerced","tag-countrys","tag-cup","tag-defect","tag-defecting","tag-doubt","tag-federation","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-further","tag-head","tag-hints","tag-in","tag-into","tag-iran","tag-iranian","tag-men","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-participation","tag-players","tag-playing","tag-saying","tag-skip","tag-sports","tag-will","tag-women","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}