The games in Qatar are not going well for the Iranian regime. It has been humiliated before the world, not because of Iran’s 6-2 loss in its match with England, but because of the Iranian team itself, whose members semaphored their distaste for the regime and solidarity with the protesters at home by refusing to sing the Iranian anthem.
Their impassive faces, their lips unmoving as the anthem was played, were seen by perhaps a billion people all over the world. And to make matters still more humiliating for the Iranian regime, Iranians in the stands jeered when the Iranian national anthem was played, and then roundly booed their own team when it was on the field, as a way to convey not any animus toward the Iranian team, but rather, as all the commentators have noted, their hatred for the regime in Tehran. Boos in the stands from Iranian fans and silence on the field from Iranian players both conveyed the same message of rage at the regime in Tehran. More on this display of disaffection by Iranian players and fans alike can be found here: “Iranian Soccer Fans Jeer National Anthem Prior to World Cup Clash With England in Qatar,” by Ben Cohen, Algemeiner, November 22, 2022:
In unprecedented scenes at the World Cup in Qatar, Iranian fans loudly jeered their country’s national anthem as the national team stood grim-faced on the pitch prior to their opening clash against England on Monday.
Video posted by journalists covering the flagship soccer tournament showed fans booing and shouting over the anthem as it was played over the PA at the Khalifa International Stadium. Several fans were seen making thumbs-down gestures. A number carried signs in the colors of the Iranian flag or wore T-shirts that proclaimed “Women, Life, Freedom” — the main slogan of the historic protests currently rocking the Islamic Republic.
The Iranian players meanwhile stood still, wearing stony facial expressions and pointedly not singing the anthem. In a pre-match press conference, the team’s captain, Ehsan Hajsafi, explicitly references the protests at home. “We have to accept that the situation in our country is not good and that our people are not happy, they are discontent,” Hajsafi said. “We are here, but it does not mean we should not be their voice or that we should not respect them. Whatever we have is theirs.”
England went on to rout Iran 6-2, in a match that resulted in 14 minutes of stoppage time after Iranian goalkeeper Majid Hosseini was carried off the field with concussion. In a measure of the ferocity of the anti-regime protests currently convulsing Iran, social media accounts posted cellphone videos of Iranians watching the match on television and delightedly cheering an England goal.
The Iranians — both those in the stands in Qatar and those watching from their homes in Iran – were the only people in the world cheering when their own country’s team missed making a goal, or when the opposing team – England — made one.
Some Iranian fans who carried protest signs said they were denied entry to the stadium by Qatari officials, the New York Times reported. Qatar had already come in for criticism for allegedly caving to Iranian demands after the media credentials of Iran International TV, a London-based anti-regime broadcaster, were canceled on the eve of the competition.
Qatar did what it could to limit Iranian anti-regime demonstrations. It prevented Iranians carrying protest signs from entering the stadium where Iran’s match with England was to be held. It cancelled the media credentials of Iran International TV, an anti-regime broadcaster based in London. But none of that has prevented the station from covering, at a distance, both the silence of the Iranian players and the booing of Iran’s national team by Iranian fans in the stadium. And the world media has given tremendous coverage both to the Iranian players who remained silent during the playing of Iran’s national anthem, and to the Iranian fans who, by booing the Iranian team were, in their different ways, telling the world how much they hated the regime in Tehran.
Official Iranian media outlets notably avoided the prominent display of their team’s humiliating defeat — the only occasion since a 6-1 loss to Turkey in 1950 that Iran has conceded six goals. In a tweet that followed the final whistle, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s Persian-language Twitter feed observed simply, “[T]he defeat of the Islamic Republic.”
Monday’s game was already shrouded in controversy after FIFA, international soccer’s governing body, suddenly reneged on an earlier commitment to allow team captains to wear “One Love” armbands promoting the basic rights of the LGBTQ+ community. Under Qatar’s penal code, homosexuality is prohibited and members of the LGBTQ+ community are subjected to hefty prison terms and even, in the case of Muslims, the death penalty.
On Monday, FIFA informed participating teams that players who wore the armband would face disciplinary sanctions, including possible ejection from the pitch. A statement from seven national football associations protesting the decision stated: “We were prepared to pay fines that would normally apply to breaches of kit regulations and had a strong commitment to wearing the armband. However, we cannot put our players in the situation where they might be booked, or even forced to leave the field of play.”
FIFA was prepared to do whatever Qatar wanted – after all, it has received nearly half a billion dollars from the 2022 host of the World Cup games – and Qatar wanted to prevent players from wearing armbands that conveyed a message of support for LGBT people, and served as a protest against Qatari laws that outlaw, and severely punish, homosexual activity. FIFA dutifully informed the teams that had been planning on taking part that any players wearing the armband would be severely disciplined, even including possibly being banned from the games. That threat was enough to end the “armband protest.”
The coverage of the World Cup games naturally focused on the sensational. And the most sensational events – aside, so far, from the surprise Saudi victory over Argentina, which deserves investigation – have to do with Iran, its players on the field, and Iranians in the stands. A billion people around the world, glued to their sets, saw Iranian players refusing to sing their national anthem, and Iranian fans rooting against their own country’s team – the clearest display yet, on the international scene, of the tremendous popular rage against the regime that, in Tehran, is now on the defensive, holding on by dint of the live fire it uses to suppress nonviolent civilians. It manages to hold onto power still, but for how long?
One last question many will be asking: will the Iranian soccer team return to Tehran, where it will have to face the regime’s savage punishments, possibly including death, for their “treason” in Doha? The Iranian regime has already executed athletes whom it has considered as being enemies of the regime, such as the champion wrestler Navid Afkari, who took part in the 2018 anti-regime demonstrations and was later falsely accused of killing a security guard. Would the Iranian regime dare to imprison all twelve members of the team for the “crime” of not singing the national anthem while in Qatar? Or would it be afraid to impose such harsh measures now, given the widespread revolt inside Iran, and instead settle on a much milder punishment – say, a year or two in prison?
And there are other possibilities. What if all twelve members together requested asylum in a European country, possibly England, where Iran International is located, or in the Great Satan itself, the United States? What a blow that would be to Iran’s standing. Would Qatar, under tremendous pressure from Iran, prevent them from leaving for London or Washington, or insist that they be sent back, by force if necessary, to Tehran? Things will go hard with Qatar, in both the media and the social media, if it decides to forcibly send those Iranian players back to Iran, where they will face punishments they do not deserve, including long prison terms and even execution.
Within a few weeks, just after the World Cup games end on December 18, we should know what the Iranian players, individually or as a group, will have decided – whether to return to whatever may await them at the hands of a vindictive, cruel, and fanatical regime, or to instead find refuge in a Western country, where, if they choose, they can continue the protest they began when they refused to sing in the stadium in Doha the anthem of the hated regime. And then we will see, too, to what degree Qatar is Iran’s puppet, by possibly preventing those players from choosing freedom. Whatever those players choose — or are forced — to do, the effect on Iran’s image in the world will be tremendous.
Walter Sieruk says
Good for those World Cup Iranian players. They are very brave and courageous for refusing to sing the national anthem of the horrendously evil tyrannical Islamic regime of Iran.
For that “mullah tyranny” of Iran Iran was based on a foundation of lies and horrific human rights abuses.
From 1979 to the year 2022 it been more than forty years of horror and misery since the establishment of Islamic tyranny of Iran based only on lies, deceptions and deadly violence from those in power in that harshly oppressive “mullah tyranny ‘ of Iran. Just look what Islam which Sharia law has none to people of Iran.
In other words, since 1979 this Sharia law Islamic regime was founded on false promises, Islamic violence and lying words of Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran in his deception of the Iranian people.
To put this in another way, that Islamic regime is based in the foundation of false and empty promises. As well as lying words. After the fiendish Muslim clerics obtained total power in Iran, they showed their true colors by having their Islamic state police who are called the “Revolutionary Guards truest the people on Iran in many heinously brutal and ruthless ways. As, for example, their brutal, callous misogyny against both girls and women.
This statement is explained, in some detail, by the following. This tyrannical Islamic regime in Iran that so falsely and inappropriately has the word “republic” in its title. It should be made known that this called the “Iranian Revolution” turned out to be a hoax. Ayatollah Khomeini before achieving power in Iran in his lying and deceptions presented himself to the Iranian people as if he was someone who would be in power would give freedom to the people of Iran with any tyranny. The reality turned out to be just the opposite.
As explained by a former Muslim as well as a man who took part in this Islamic “revolution “ ,who is now a Christian informs the reader of his book that “Prior to the Revolution no one ever imagined that other political parties would be suppressed under the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini. He had promised that all groups would have freedom to run their own campaigns after the Revolution. He even stated that governing system would be based on the decision of the people via a referendum. He never spoke of a system that would be governed by Islam. He even made clear that mullahs would not take part in any political activities, and that they would only be allowed to teach spirituality… Immediately after the Revolution, mullahs rushed into government offices to occupy the most important political l positions, making it difficult for the interim secular government to function … The mullah’s occupation of position was exactly the opposite to what the Ayatollah Khomeini had promised before the Revolution.”. [1] In other words, the insincere, disingenuous and outright lying Ayatollah Khomeini made many bogus promise he really had no intention of keeping. His lying deception worked, for he achieved great power in Iran.
Furthermore, of the many heinously evils outcome s of that Islamic “revolution” is the extremely cruel, brutal and demonic misogyny of this hideous Islamic regime. Not only against women but even young girls. As explained by a former Iranian Revolutionary Guard member who defected to the West and how now lives in America his book also informs the reader about the malicious and murderous affront girls in Iran’s Evin prison which reads that those in power, the “paraded teenage girls in front in front of me as they led them to their deaths. These girls were barely out of their childhood, barely old enough to think of themselves, much less form thoughts against the state. They knew nothing about the machinations of politics. They were innocent in every sense of the word and certainty innocent of trumped –up charges that led to their imprisonment. Yet they suffered fates too brutal for even the most vicious criminal. ..Their few remaining moments of life had been filled with the level of abuse that few can imagine…The author further states “They tortured and killed young girls, in God’s name and before their execution they raped them because they believed that if a girl dies virgin, she will go to heaven, and they wanted to deny them this reward.” [2] This is as malice -filled and viciously wicked as can possibly be. This, very much, reflects the wisdom found in POOR RICHARDS’ ALMANAC in which Benjamin Franklin printed “Those who are feared are also hated.”
[1] ISLAM THE HOUSE I LEFT BEHIND by Daniel Shayesteh . Pages 90, 91
[2] A TIME TO BETRAY by Reza Kahlili. Pages 2,3. 117.
Walter Sieruk says
It had been said ” All that is needed for evil to trumpet is for good men to do nothing.” Just the fact that those good men are taking a awful risk by not singing the national anthem of the wicked oppressive malicious and murderous Islamic tyranny of Iran shows that good men who are protesting that vicious tyranny and therefore they are doing something.
Walter Sieruk says
The Iranian people are are engaging in bitter and strong protests against those cruel malicious and murderous tyrants in power of that cruel and opressive Sharia based dictatorship of that Islamic regime of Iran.
In other words , those vicious despots of that horrendously horrific Islamic regime have provoked the people way too far.
Mark Spahn says
[1] “the surprise Saudi victory over Argentina …deserves investigation”. Why? Were the Argentinian team bribed to lose?
[2] The current Iranian flag, which was adopted by the mullahs in 1980, is very Allah-centric: it has Allah’s monogram in the center, and is festooned with 22 copies of the slogan “Allahu akbar” in Arabic (Kufic, not even Persian) script. Will we get a more Iran-centric flag when the current regime goes down?
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I wouldn’t read too much into the Saudi victory. As it is, there was no expectation on them to win, and MbS himself told them before the competition to just enjoy themselves. It’s a lot easier to win when there is next to no pressure on you
In the meantime, Iran lost to England and Qatar to Ecuador
About the Iranian flag, the Shah’s flag had a lion in the middle. If Iranians decide to completely forsake islam, they may either go for that, or they may go for a flag that has the Zoroastrian Faravahar symbol in the middle
Keith O says
I am in no doubt that the mullahs will find a way to get back at the soccer team, perhaps via their families.
Then we will see their captain make a statement, something along the lines of “the teams silence during the national anthem was out of respect for the mullahs”, that sort of disingenuous crap.