Iranian women footballers arrive in eastern Turkiye, on home border

The team is on the last leg of its journey home from Australia after the Asian Cup, which began before the conflict in the Middle East.

The Iranian women’s national football squad has arrived in eastern Turkiye and headed to the Iran border on their way home, among them several players who withdrew their asylum bids in Australia.

The players, who landed in Istanbul on Tuesday evening on a flight from Oman, flew to the eastern city of Igdir, arriving just after midday on Wednesday, the AFP news agency reported.

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Wearing Iranian national team tracksuits, they could be seen leaving the airport before heading to the Gurbulak-Bazargan crossing, which lies about 100km (60 miles) to the southeast, the AFP correspondent said.

The players arrived in Turkiye via Oman and Malaysia, having left Australia, where they were competing in the Asian Cup.

“I am missing my family,” one of them told AFP on Monday at Kuala Lumpur airport.

Seven members of the delegation had sought sanctuary in Australia last week after being branded “traitors” back home for refusing to sing the national anthem at their opening game at the Women’s Asian Cup.

But five of them later changed their minds, leaving only two in Australia.

In a post on X, the Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said the players and their support team were “children of the homeland, and the people of Iran embrace them”.

He said by returning, they had “disappointed the enemies [of Iran] and did not surrender to deception and intimidation by anti-Iran elements”.

Rights groups have accused Tehran of pressuring athletes abroad by threatening relatives with the seizure of property if they defect or make statements against Iran.

Iranian authorities had, in turn, accused Australia of pressuring the players to stay.