CNN
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Iran’s document worldwide goalscorer Ali Daei mentioned on Monday that he refused an invite to attend the World Cup in Qatar subsequent week to face in solidarity with Iranian protesters.
“I rejected the official invitation of FIFA and Qatar Soccer Federation to attend the World Cup with my spouse and daughters,” he wrote on Instagram.
“I want to be subsequent to you in my homeland and specific my sympathy with all of the households who misplaced family members over nowadays,” added Daei.
The 53-year-old Iranian soccer legend scored 109 objectives for Iran between 1993 and 2006, a document damaged by Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo final 12 months.
Daei has been a vocal supporter of the nationwide protests throughout Iran, which broke out when 22-year-old girl Mahsa Amini died in September after getting detained by Iran’s morality police.
“As a substitute of repression, violence and arresting the Iranian individuals, resolve their issues,” Daei wrote in one other Instagram publish in September.
CNN has reached out to Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Supply & Legacy for remark.
Former Dutch worldwide Clarence Seedorf counseled Daei’s choice to not go to Qatar.
“You’re a actual religious chief in your individuals my good friend,” mentioned Seedorf mentioned in a touch upon Daei’s publish on Monday.
“I love you braveness, kindness and management. Peace is what I want could be reached asap. A lot love you and household and all of the brothers and Sisters in Iran.”
An activist group, United for Navid marketing campaign, had instructed CNN that Daei’s passport was confiscated for his vocal help for the protests. CNN couldn’t confirm that declare.
Daei just isn’t the one Iranian athlete protesting the federal government.
Final month, a legislation agency despatched a letter to FIFA on behalf of a gaggle of former and present Iranian sports activities figures urging soccer’s governing physique to droop the Iranian Soccer Federation (FFIRI) and ban it from taking part at this 12 months’s World Cup in Qatar.
The letter says the actions of Iran’s soccer federation violate FIFA statues and rules.
“Iran’s brutality and belligerence in the direction of its personal individuals has reached a tipping level, demanding an unequivocal and agency disassociation from the footballing and sports activities world,” a press launch issued alongside the letter reads.
The letter was signed by, amongst others, Mohammad Reza Faghani, a FIFA-licensed referee, Vahid Sarlak, Asian Judo champion and Iran Nationwide Group member, and Shiva Amini, former Nationwide Girls’s Futsal Group participant.
Elsewhere, after scoring a aim within the Emirates Intercontinental Seashore Soccer Cup remaining, Saeed Piramoon imitated slicing his hair – a transfer signaling help for nationwide protests within the nation by calling for larger freedoms for girls – an act that Iran’s soccer authorities have vowed to take care of.
Soccer participant Sardar Azmoun additionally doubtlessly risked lacking out on being chosen for the World Cup after criticizing the federal government.
“That’s value sacrificing for one strand of Iranian girls’s hair,” Azmoun wrote in an Instagram story. “Disgrace on you who kill individuals so simply. Lengthy reside Iranian girls.”
Nonetheless, Azmoun was named in Iran’s World Cup squad on Sunday.
The 27-year-old Azmoun suffered a calf muscle calf whereas warming up for Bayer Leverkusen’s Champions League recreation towards Porto on October 4 and hasn’t performed since for the German membership.
Azmoun was anticipated to be sidelined for between six and eight weeks, in keeping with Leverkusen.
