5th member of Iran Women

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — Another member of the Iranian women’s soccer team. who accepted a refugee visa staying in Australia has decided to return to his homeland, a sports official said on Monday.

That leaves two of the squad’s initial seven members who accepted asylum and who are sticking to their original decisions.

The Iranian women’s soccer team had not yet revealed its plans to leave Malaysia when most of the seven team members who created a diplomatic furor by accepting asylum in Australia a week ago had joined their teammates in Kuala Lumpur, the sports official said.

The team flew out of Sydney on March 10 after being eliminated from the Women’s Asian Cup in Australia, leaving behind six players and one support staff member who had accepted protection visas.

Four players and staff have since rejoined the team. in Kuala Lumpur, the last flight on Monday. No reasons have been given for the changes of opinion, but the Iranian diaspora in Australia blames pressure from Tehran. Some suspect the team will take a 10-hour flight from Sydney until the two standout players are persuaded to join them from Australia.

The team is supported by the Asian Football Confederation in Kuala Lumpur. The confederation’s director-general, Windsor Paul John, said the team was waiting in Malaysia’s largest city to make air connections to his war-torn country.

“It could be today, tomorrow or next week,” Windsor told reporters in Kuala Lumpur. “We’re just waiting for them to tell us their plans.”

Windsor said his confederation had not received any direct complaints from players about returning home, despite media reports that their families in Iran could face retaliation because the team did not sing its national anthem before the opening match.

“We couldn’t verify anything. We asked them and they said, ‘No, it’s fine,'” he said. “They’re actually in a very good mood… They didn’t seem afraid.”

Iranian authorities have welcomed the women’s decisions to refuse asylum as a victory against Australia and President Trump.

The Iran team had arrived in Australia for the tournament shortly before the war in the Middle East began on February 28, complicating travel arrangements.

Deputy Immigration Minister Matt Thistlethwaite described the plight of women in Australia as a “very complex situation”.

“These are deeply personal decisions, and the government respects the decisions of those who have chosen to return. And we continue to offer support to the two who remain,” Thistlethwaite said.

Those who remained in Australia have been moved to an undisclosed safe location and are receiving assistance from the government and the Iranian diaspora community, he said.

Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a political scientist at Sydney’s Macquarie University who spent more than two years in Iranian prisons accused of espionage between 2018 and 2020, said “winning the propaganda war” had overshadowed women’s well-being.

“In my opinion, the high stakes made the Iranian regime sit up, pay attention and try to force their response,” Moore-Gilbert said.

“I think that in this case, if these women had quietly sought asylum without that publicity around them, it is possible that the Islamic Republic officials would have done so, as they have done in the cases of other Iranian athletes in the past who defected… they simply allowed that to happen,” he added.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency said the players who left Australia were “returning to the warm embrace of their family and homeland”, and described their return as a failure of what it called an American-Australian political effort.

Concerns about the team’s safety in Iran increased when the players did not sing the Iranian national anthem.

Iranian groups in Australia and the US president urged the Australian government to help the women.

Some members of the Iranian diaspora in Australia have accused the support staff member who initially accepted the aylum and then left Australia on Saturday of spreading Iranian government propaganda to his teammates via text messages.

Thistlethwaite said there was no evidence to support the theory that the employee had persuaded others to leave. All those who remained in Australia after the team’s departure were “genuine asylum seekers”, he said.

The Iranian embassy in Canberra, the national capital, remains staffed, despite the Australian government expelling the ambassador last year.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese severed diplomatic relations with Iran in August after announcing that intelligence officials had concluded that the Revolutionary Guard had directed arson attacks against a Sydney kosher food company and Melbourne’s Adass Israel synagogue in 2024.

Australian-Iranian Society of Victoria vice-president Kambiz Razmara said the women who accepted asylum had been under pressure from the regime in Tehran.

“They have had to make decisions on the spur of the moment with very little information and have had to react to the circumstances,” Razmara said. “I’m surprised they decided to leave, but I’m not really surprised because I appreciate the pressures they’re under.”