FIFA have been asked to suspend the Iranian Football Federation and remove Iran from the World Cup in Qatar.
Iran will compete in Group B alongside England, Wales, and the USA; their opening match is set for November 21 against Gareth Southgate’s Three Lions.
However, Iran’s participation in the competition is in jeopardy because of the brutal regime’s actions.
Unprecedented demonstrations have broken out across Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, who was detained by the country’s morality police for improperly donning a headscarf.
Since then, the Islamic state has faced its greatest threat since it came to power in the 1979 revolution, which took place over 40 years ago, with the deaths of over 200 protesters, including 23 children.
Additionally, Iran sparked international outrage by supplying Vladimir Putin and his forces in Ukraine with weapons.
As a result, a number of Iranian footballers and sports personalities have requested that FIFA remove Iran from the World Cup, stating that the nation’s ‘brutality and belligerence towards their own people has reached a tipping point, demanding an unequivocal and firm disassociation from the footballing and sports world’.
The letter claims that neither men nor women can play football safely and that Iranian women have been “systematically excluded from the football ecosystem.”
In the statement, which was issued in association with a Spanish law firm, it was stated: “Iran’s brutality and belligerence towards its own people has reached a tipping point, demanding an unequivocal and firm disassociation from the footballing and sports world.
Iranian journalist and women’s rights activist @AlinejadMasih says in collaboration with a Spanish law firm, “a formal request has been sent to @FIFAcom to suspend Iran’s Football Federation with immediate effect, and therefore effectively ban them from the 2022 World Cup.”
“FIFA’s historical abstinence from political quagmires has often only been tolerated when those situations do not metastasize into the footballing sphere … Football, which should be a safe place for everyone, is not a safe space for women or even men.
“Women have been consistently denied access to stadia across the country and systematically excluded from the football ecosystem in Iran, which sharply contrasts with FIFA’s values and statutes.”
