What began as a story of courage – of Iranian female athletes risking everything to seek freedom on foreign soil – has taken a turn. Over the past weekend and into Monday, the seven members of Iran’s women’s soccer team who had accepted humanitarian visas in Australia dwindled to two.
Players, reportedly one by one, reversed their asylum decisions and departed for Malaysia, with Iranian leaders celebrating each departure as a political win.
A fifth member of the team, who had accepted a refugee visa to stay in Australia, departed shortly before midnight on Sunday, leaving only two of the original seven squad members in the country. Among those who went back to Iran after taking asylum was team captain Zahra Ghanbari, who Iranian officials confirmed would fly from Malaysia to Iran only hours after her initial decision to stay, per 9 News Australia.
The domino effect of players reversing their decisions and flying back to Iran began shortly after the initial seven were granted asylum.
One of the women – later identified as Mohadese Zolfigol – reversed her decision early in the week after consulting with teammates who had already left Australia. Minister for Home Affairs of Australia Tony Burke told Parliament that Zolfigol’s teammates and coach had advised her to contact the Iranian embassy and request to be sent back, which exposed the secure location of the remaining six women, who then had to be relocated immediately, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Iranian state broadcaster IRIB reported that three more women had “given up on their asylum applications in Australia” and were heading to Malaysia, posting photographs of the women boarding a plane. According to the BBC, the rest of the team has remained in Kuala Lumpur since leaving Australia on March 10, awaiting their return to Iran.
Iranian authorities were quick to spin the story. Iran’s Tasnim News Agency described the women’s returns as them going back to “the warm embrace of their family and homeland,” and called the situation a “disgraceful failure of the American-Australian project.”
But not everyone is buying that narrative.
Australian-Iranian Society of Victoria Vice-President Kambiz Razmara said the women had been under nonstop pressure from the Tehran regime.
“They’ve had to make decisions at the spur of the moment with very little information, and they’ve had to react to the circumstance,” he told NPR. “I’m surprised that they’ve decided to go, but I’m actually not surprised because I appreciate the pressures that they’re experiencing.”
Those pressures are well-documented. As The Dallas Express previously reported, sources close to the team said that players were directly threatened into singing the national anthem at the Asian Cup after their silent protest during the opening match against South Korea on March 2.
Sports journalist Raha Pourbakhsh confirmed that the families of at least three of the original five asylum seekers had already received threats.
FIFPRO, the global group representing professional footballers, recently called out FIFA and the AFC to “undertake all necessary steps” for the Iranian players’ protection, warning that for decades, athletes in Iran have faced persecution for standing up for basic rights and freedom of speech.
“When we look back, a lot of this was foreseeable,” FIFPRO Asia/Oceania president Beau Busch told ESPN earlier this month. “We were writing to the AFC and FIFA back in February. We were trying to make sure that this was on everybody’s radar. We know that we saw in the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup, where there was a lot of discussion around the Iranian men not singing the national anthem. We knew that there was a significant challenge within Iran, with the regime, with athletes, etc. All of those things were known well before the tournament started.”
“The reality at the moment is that we’re unable to get in touch with the players. That’s incredibly concerning. That’s not a new thing, that’s really been [the case] since the repression really dialled up [following protests] in February,” Busch added.
Burke has confirmed that the two remaining women in Australia will continue to receive full government support, including housing, healthcare, and a path to permanent residency.
The Dallas Express will continue to monitor developments for both the men’s and women’s teams in Iran as the situation evolves.