‘Heartwarming and brave’: Iranian football team shows solidarity with anti-veil protests

The videos of players standing solemnly with black jackets as they keep their arms around one another are being widely circulated online. The players took off their jackets after the national anthem.

Iranian National Football(soccer) team wears all black to cover their country’s colors in protest of the death of Mahsa Amini. pic.twitter.com/eicXK2pcJU

— Chris Walker (@WalkerATX) September 27, 2022

Heartwarming. And so brave!

— Daniel Lechner (@eeep) September 27, 2022

Very brave thing for the Iranian national football team to do. And puts the regime into a bit of a bind: Iranians love football – messing with these guys ahead of the upcoming World Cup will only fuel the protests even more. #Iran #IranRevolution https://t.co/HQQ7k8jWvz

— Reza Afshar (@RezaMac) September 28, 2022

God, the courage of these men to show their support like that 💛

— DavidⓂ️eidas🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇺🇦 🏳️‍🌈 (@Meidas_David) September 28, 2022

As an Iranian I can tell you people if Iran are not impressed by this.

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Football in Iran is a big deal and these players can do A LOT more than wear a jacket to show their support

— Mo 💚🤍💔✊🏾 (@MozFrame) September 28, 2022

Well done!

Doing it for their mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, girlfriends and the rest of the women of Iran.

Courage gentleman.

Matching that of the women on the streets protesting against the mandates of the religious police.

— Ed Rivera (@EdRiver76005279) September 28, 2022

A friend of mine was an Olympic swimmer from Iran back in the 90s. He was all set to go to the Pan Asian games when his country backed out at the last minute because the male and female athletes would be using the same pool. That’s when he says he stopped being Iranian.

— Spooky (@RestingRageFace) September 28, 2022

This is solidarity. Wow.

— Lindsey Boylan (@LindseyBoylan) September 28, 2022

This is an International public statement against their religious dictatorship. Bravo to them and hopefully their families will be ok.

— We the People are NOT stQpid . VOTE BLUE (@occakid) September 28, 2022

Damn, good for them, that takes some real courage… good to see their support for the super brave women of their country

— Vern AF (@taddimason) September 28, 2022

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Commenting on the video, a Twitter user wrote, “Very brave thing for the Iranian national football team to do. And puts the regime into a bit of a bind: Iranians love football – messing with these guys ahead of the upcoming World Cup will only fuel the protests even more. #Iran #IranRevolution”. Another person wrote, “So heartwarming and brave”.

Earlier this month, Iranian football player Sardar Azmoun posted an Instagram story in support of the protests. As per translations by the Iran Wire, he wrote, “Because of the national team rules we couldn’t say anything until the World Cup training camp was over. But I couldn’t bear it anymore. At worst I’ll be dismissed from the national team. No problem. I’d sacrifice that for one hair on the heads of Iranian women. This story will not be deleted. They can do whatever they want. Shame on you for killing so easily; long live Iranian women.”

Players Alireza Biranvand and Majid Hosseini also posted similar solidarity messages on Instagram but as reported by the Iran Wire, they deleted their stories after a few hours.