Iran’s women’s football team left Australia, where it played in the Asian Cup, without the five players who abandoned training and sought asylum in the Oceanian country.
The delegation flew from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur this Tuesday (10), from where it is expected to continue its journey back to Iran, according to the Australian channel ABC.
Australia granted asylum on Monday (9) to five players, including captain Zahra Ghanbari, who were called “traitors” by the Tehran regime because they did not sing the national anthem before an Asian Cup match.
Australian Interior Minister Tony Burke justified the approval of the asylum request due to fear of persecution of the athletes if they returned to Iran.
“Australian police took them to a safe location. Last night, I gave final approval to their humanitarian visa applications,” Burke told the press.
“They can stay in Australia, they are safe here and they should feel like they are at home,” he added.
The 26 members of the Iranian delegation arrived in Australia a few days before the start of the bombings by Israel and the United States that caused the death of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on February 28.
According to Burke, the Australian government held secret conversations for several days with the players to finalize the asylum requests of the athletes who requested the measure.
Throughout Monday, several organizations and personalities from various fields, such as the President of the United States, Donald Trump, the son of the last shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, or the British writer JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter saga, asked the Australian authorities to grant asylum to the Iranian players for fear that they would suffer reprisals in their country.
According to Zaki Haidari, an activist at Amnesty International, the athletes risk being persecuted if they return to their country.
“It is likely that some of them have already seen their families threatened,” Haidari added.
The Iran team competed in the women’s Asian Cup for the first time in 2022, in India. The players have become national heroes in a country where women’s rights are severely limited.
