Iran legend Daei will not join Football World Cup amid protests

Tehran, Iranian football legend Ali Daei will not travel to Qatar for the 2022 Football World Cup in unity with those participating in anti-government complaints, which are in their eighth week despite a crackdown and internet limits.

The 53-year-old former player, one of the country’s most familiar sports figures, wrote to his 10.6 million fans on Instagram late on Monday that he has declined an invitation by football’s governing body FIFA and the Qatar Football Federation to travel with his wife and sons "in these days when most of us are not well".

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Daei, now a football manager and manufacturer, said he did it to "be by your side in my homeland and express my sympathy with all the relations who have lost loved ones these days" in a post that conventional two million likes within hours nevertheless a ban on Instagram amid a nationwide regulating of the internet.

Iran football World Cup

Protests exploded across Iran after the September 16 death in the care of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was detained in Tehran by the morality police for allegedly wearing her hijab indecorously. Daei, who was the world’s top international goal scorer with 109 goals until his best was broken by Cristiano Ronaldo last year, has also spoken in support of the protests before.

The former captain of the Iranian national football team and ex-Bundesliga player was also at odds with establishments last month when he refuted an official claim that a female school schoolchild in his hometown of Ardabil had died of pre-existing circumstances in a case that officials said was unrelated to the complaints despite media reports.

An image of Daei circulated on social media late on Sunday, which seemed to show him in the vicinity of the Dey General Hospital in Tehran, where confined activist Hossein Ronaghi was supposed to have been taken after his health worsened. Numerous videos online showed complaints around the hospital.

Ronaghi was under arrest for speaking out against the crackdown on the complaints, during which hundreds of people have been arrested and dozens have expired. No official casualty figures are available. The Iranian judiciary then showed an image of Ronaghi in a hospital bed, meeting his mother, and he was later taken back to prison. The Iranian national team, which long-established its squad late on Sunday, arrived in Qatar on Monday and began exercise early on Tuesday.

Carlos Queiroz

Escorted by head coach Carlos Queiroz, team memberships met with President Ebrahim Raisi and other officials in Tehran hours before leaving for the Football World Cup.

"Some don’t want to see the achievement and victory of Iranian youth and wish to disturb your focus. Be very watchful on this," the leader warned them.

Numerous athletes have shown unity with the protests. Meanwhile, amid claims that Tehran has armed Russia for the war in Ukraine, campaigners abroad and in Ukraine have separately called for the exclusion of Team Melli, Iran’s national football team, from the competition. Fans can buy England vs Iran Tickets from our website.

Iran is at war with its people. Fifa won’t let that indulge their Football World Cup

Certain governments, such as Syria and Myanmar, kill their people. Some, such as Russia, kill people in other republics, such as Ukraine. Iran’s government is doing it together, home and away. Now, busy into action by this fatal regime, Iran’s national football squad is about to play England, Wales, and the US in the 2022 Qatar World Cup – as if nonentity untoward were happening. This is not OK. In truth, it’s disgraceful.

To assist fans itinerant to Qatar for the England-Iran match on 21 November and other Group B fixtures, here’s a brief programmer guide to recent proceedings off the pitch. Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, was compressed to death in police custody in Tehran in September after her arrest for allegedly breaking rules on obligatory head coverings. In the ensuing nationwide protests – which are continuing – Iran’s security forces have killed hundreds of people and imprisoned nearly 10,000. Demands for reform have been forbidden out of hand.

Qatar Football World Cup

Hardliners say the protestors should be executed. That would be nothing out of the ordinary for a regime infamous for human rights abuses, foreign hostage-taking, and assassination plots. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, does not stop at terrorizing young women. By providing swarms of "kamikaze" drones to Russia, and allegedly ballistic missiles, too, the aging dictator is helping Vladimir Putin’s forces kill and maim Ukrainian children and create a caring disaster this winter.

Khamenei’s regime, which has armed ties to North Korea and Syria, as well as Russia, and is regarded by Israel as an existential threat, seems determined to acquire nuclear weapons-making capability. Tehran delayed last-ditch European labors to resuscitate the 2015 UN-backed nuclear deal. Specialists say Iran can now produce enough fissile material to shape a bomb in less than seven days.

Iran’s players are awkwardly aware of regime efforts to use football (and them) to current a normal face to the world and sidetrack attention from the crisis at home. Sardar Azmoun, a star striker, castigated the mullahs on Instagram. "Shame on you for so easily killing our persons and long live the women of Iran," he wrote. Teammates have also censured the regime.

Doha

Yet there’s little unwillingness that Team Melli, as the national side is known, will show up in Doha. Penalties for refusing to play would be impressive and there appears no prospect of a boycott. For different reasons, the England, USA, and Wale teams will also seemingly do as they are told. National respect and a great deal of money are pale. Governmentally speaking, it would be next to unbearable to pull out now. Humanly speaking, it’s sickening.

How is it acceptable to play games with a republic at war with its people and, indirectly, with you and your friends? Gianni Infantino, president of Fifa, world football’s leading body, gave his tin-eared answer this month. He pleaded with the 32 countries’ rival in Qatar to "focus on the football" and leave "politics" out of it.

"We know football does not live in a vacuum," Infantino wrote. "But gratify do not allow football to be dragged into every philosophical or political battle that exists... At Fifa, we try to respect all opinions and beliefs, without giving out moral lessons to the rest of the world."

Given its history of corruption and racketeering, the idea of Fifa giving out "moral lessons" to anyone is pathetic. But set that to one cross for now. Fans can buy Iran Vs USA Tickets from our website.

Infantino did not address calls for Iran to be thrown out of the Football World Cup.

Evocatively, Infantino did not speech calls for Iran to be thrown out of the World Cup. And he also ignored the typical political action taken by Fifa itself in February, when it excluded Russia after its Ukraine attack. Other examples include the ostracism of apartheid-era South Africa, and the banning of the Yugoslavia/Serbia squad from the internet This "Don’t look up" strategy has unavoidably sucked Qatar into a disagreement over migrant workers’ rights and, more lately, over archaic arrogances to LGBTQ+ fans.

An aggressive claim last week by a Qatar World Cup "ambassador" that homosexuality arises from "damage in the mind" crystallized the problem. Despite some progress, "human rights abuses [in Qatar] persist on an important scale," Amnesty International reported last month. "If Gianni Infantino wants the world to ‘focus on the football’... Fifa could finally start undertaking serious human rights subjects rather than brushing them under the carpet," said Amnesty’s head of financial and social justice, Steve Cockburn.

"It is amazing they still have not done so." Ten European football associations, including the English and Welsh FAs, are demanding Fifa and Qatar do more. A joint declaration included an important, even historic statement. "Embracing diversity and tolerance also mean secondary human rights. Human rights are worldwide and they apply everywhere," it said.

Football World Cup

That’s certainly true. So if for no other reason, constancy requires that Saudi Arabia, another World Cup qualifier and serial human rights abuser, also face stricter scrutiny. The Saudi regime has turned Qatar-style sport washing – standing laundering – into a successful industry through lavish sponsorship of international sporting events and the acquisition of the English Premier League club Newcastle United.

Yet egregious Saudi human rights abuses, including mass implementations and torture, persist. Will the unlawfully jailed Leeds University student, Salma al-Shehab, and other Saudi and Iranian party-political prisoners be watching the footie from their cells? Unlikely.

Scrub the paeans to "worldwide rights". Forget hyped-up talk of an "exceptional global carnival" and "unparalleled festival of football".

As a sight of human self-deception, disassociation, and obvious hypocrisy, the 2022Qatar World Cup is a genuine world whisk.

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