Iran’s World Cup team: This time they sang the anthem

Iran’s national team had boycotted the anthem before the first game – but today the players sang along. You must have been accused of being a “Team Mullah” at home for a long time.

The Iranian national team may not be the most successful at the World Cup in Qatar – but many consider it the bravest. Because before the opening game against England, she dared to remain silent during the national anthem in solidarity with the anti-regime protests at home. At least since then, the players should be under massive pressure.

And they don’t seem to have withstood it: in tonight’s game, you don’t really hear anyone fervently singing along in the stadium – like you did with the Wales national anthem a few minutes earlier. But the Iranian players at least move their lips more or less. Their faces are petrified as the Iranian anthem plays.

One player’s arm is easy to read: “Love me for who I am.” The only statement that can be seen on the field at the moment.

Bitter tears flow in the stands of the stadium. Before kick-off, folders had taken a banner from a fan. One of the most important slogans of the demonstrators at home in Iran was written on it: women, life, freedom.

In Iran against the protests continue

Meanwhile, the protests continue in the country: They are thirsty for the blood of the leaders, they shout at a demonstration in Zahedan in the south-east this morning. Football and the World Cup in Qatar is not an issue for most people these days.

Human rights organizations say at least 400 people have died since mid-September, including 40 children. Demonstrators are said to be tortured and raped in the prisons. At least six are sentenced to death. The Human Rights Commission of the United Nations (UN) decided yesterday in Geneva to have human rights violations investigated.

In his response to the UN resolution, which Germany helped introduce, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hussein Amirabdollahian spoke of the Berlin regime playing domestic political games. That should refer to the demonstration in Berlin last month. 80,000 participants had expressed their solidarity with the protests and some also wanted to put pressure on the federal government.

Was Ghafouri’s arrest a warning?

None of this seems to impress the regime in Tehran. Voria Ghafouri was arrested yesterday. The Kurd and former Iranian national soccer player regularly criticizes the government and also attends the funerals of the victims of the protests. He was not nominated for the World Cup in Qatar.

Many see his arrest just a day before Iran’s second World Cup game as a warning to his teammates, who were allowed to fly. It could be the same for them when they return to Iran.

“Team Melli” became “Team Mullah”

But maybe they were just disappointed with the reaction of the demonstrators to their silence at the anthem before the first game. Instead of sympathy, they earn ridicule.

The nickname of the Iran national team is “Team Melli”. This has now become “Team Mullah” – an allusion to their visit to the ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raisi. The seemingly light-hearted photos of it just made many Iranians angry.

A photo online shows a man on the back of a motorcycle – probably in the streets of Tehran. He has the British flag tied around his shoulders. It’s one of the flags, along with the Israeli and US, that people usually burn at pro-regime rallies, which they angrily trample on. The man risks a lot – and sends a clear signal. The enemies of the regime are not the enemies of the people of Iran.