{"id":378565,"date":"2026-04-14T06:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T06:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/378565\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T06:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T06:50:08","slug":"iran-football-captain-zahra-ghanbari-gets-seized-assets-back-after-australia-asylum-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/378565\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran football captain Zahra Ghanbari gets seized assets back after Australia asylum bid"},"content":{"rendered":"

The announcement came two days after Iranian media published a list of people they called \u201ctraitors\u201d whose assets had been frozen by court order following the outbreak of the war with Israel and the United States<\/a> on February 28.<\/p>\n

Ghanbari\u2019s name appeared on the list, although it was not immediately clear when the decision to freeze her assets had been taken.<\/p>\n

Rights groups have repeatedly accused Iranian authorities of pressuring athletes who compete abroad by threatening relatives or seizing property if they defect or make statements against the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

In this case, campaigners accused Tehran of pressuring the women\u2019s families, including summoning their parents for interrogations by intelligence agents. Iranian authorities however alleged that Australia sought to force the athletes to defect.<\/p>\n

The team had drawn criticism from hardliners in Iran after failing to sing the national anthem of the Islamic Republic before their first match. They sang the anthem in later matches and it featured prominently in the welcome ceremony in Tehran.<\/p>\n

The controversy, against the background of the war, erupted with the Iranian men\u2019s team due to play in the World Cup in the United States in June.<\/p>\n

Fifa president Gianni Infantino told AFP last month in Turkey on the sidelines of an international friendly being played by Iran that \u201cIran will be at the World Cup\u201d and play its group matches as scheduled in the US.<\/p>\n

Just two of the Iranian women\u2019s footballers remained in Australia and have been training with the club Brisbane Roar.<\/p>\n

– Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The announcement came two days after Iranian media published a list of people they called \u201ctraitors\u201d whose assets…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,19092,173355,85,29893,1863,1558,1040,13381,2741,5213,6276,197129,16609,168147,126523,78946,685,1362,4486,111,139,69,13181,3048,12641,213,7187,107,14578,5977,48657,2834,197128],"class_list":{"0":"post-378565","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-assets","10":"tag-asylum","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-authorities","13":"tag-back","14":"tag-been","15":"tag-bid","16":"tag-captain","17":"tag-claim","18":"tag-football","19":"tag-gets","20":"tag-ghanbari","21":"tag-iran","22":"tag-iranian","23":"tag-irans","24":"tag-judiciary","25":"tag-last","26":"tag-made","27":"tag-month","28":"tag-new-zealand","29":"tag-newzealand","30":"tag-nz","31":"tag-released","32":"tag-said","33":"tag-seized","34":"tag-sports","35":"tag-team","36":"tag-then","37":"tag-tuesday","38":"tag-which","39":"tag-withdrew","40":"tag-womens","41":"tag-zahra"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378565","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=378565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}