6 members of the Iranian women’s soccer team granted asylum in Australia
GOLD COAST, Australia (AP) — A total of six members of the Iranian women’s soccer team will remain in Australia, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Wednesday, after one of the squad members earlier granted asylum changed her mind and planned to return to Iran.
The names of the seven team members who were issued humanitarian visas to stay in Australia have been widely published — including by Burke — and it was not immediately clear which of the women had reversed her decision.
The rest of the team’s departure from Sydney, Australia late Tuesday happened during fraught and outraged protests at the delegation’s hotel and at the airport. Iranian Australians sought to prevent the women from leaving the country, citing fears for their safety in Iran.
Burke on Wednesday morning announced that one player and a team staffer had joined five athletes who had decided to stay in Australia. Hours later, however, he told Australia’s federal parliament in Canberra that one of the women had spoken to her departed teammates and decided to return home too.
“She was advised by her teammates and coach to contact the Iranian embassy and to get collected,” Burke said. “As a result of that, it meant that the Iranian embassy now knew the location of where everybody was.”
The six women remaining in Australia were immediately moved to a different location, the minister said.
Women offered asylum as they departed
The tense and fluid situation capped a fraught time in Australia for the Iranian players. The team arrived in the country for the Women’s Asian Cup last month, before the Iran war began Feb. 28. Iran was knocked out of the tournament over the weekend and the squad faced the prospect of returning to a country under bombardment.
Australia’s government Wednesday disclosed their final attempts to ensure each member of the team could consider an asylum offer. Burke said that as the women passed through border security, they were taken aside individually to speak to Australian officials and interpreters, without minders present.
“Australia made the offer because we are so impressed by these women as individuals,” he said. “The choice that Australia gave, the choice of government officials standing in front of you and saying it is up to you, is a choice that every individual should be entitled to.”
Some called their families in Iran to discuss the offer, Burke added, but no further members of the delegation decided to remain in Australia.
“Everything was about ensuring the dignity for those individuals to make a choice,” he said. “We couldn’t take away the pressure of the context for these individuals, of what might have been said to them beforehand, what pressures they might have felt there were on other family members.”
Those who sought asylum received temporary humanitarian visas, which would lead to permanent residency in Australia, Burke said. He added that some of the delegation were not offered visas because they had connections to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
Team’s fate drew national spotlight
The Iranian team became popular figures in Australia during the tournament. Iranian groups in Australia had urged the government to halt the women’s departure after the team drew widespread news coverage in Australia when players didn’t sing the Iranian anthem before their first match.
The players didn’t explain publicly why they did not sing. They later saluted and sang the anthem before their other games. During the tournament, the women mostly declined to comment on the situation at home and made no political remarks.
“When those players were silent at the start of their first match in Australia, that silence was heard as a roar all around the world,” Burke said. “We responded by saying, the invitation is there. In Australia you can be safe.”
It was not clear exactly how many people were in the delegation, but an official squad list named 26 players, plus coaching and other staff. Burke rejected suggestions that Australian officials should have done more to stop the women’s departure.
“Australia’s objective here was not to force people to make a particular decision,” he said. “We’re not that sort of nation.”
The minister said he had viewed widely published footage that appeared to show a woman being led by the hand by her teammates from the team’s hotel on Queensland’s Gold Coast to their bus. Whether that constituted coercion was a matter for local Australian police, Burke said.
Iran criticizes Trump’s remarks
“Iran welcomes its children with open arms and the government guarantees their security,” Iranian first Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said Tuesday. “No one has the right to interfere in the family affairs of the Iranian nation and play the role of a nanny who is kinder than a mother,” he added.
The team’s fate attracted international attention, including from U.S. President Donald Trump, who decried the Australian government Monday for not offering the women asylum. It emerged Tuesday that discussions between Australian officials and some of the women had already been unfolding privately.
Iranian state TV said the country’s football federation had asked international soccer bodies to review what it called Trump’s “direct political interference in football,” warning such remarks could disrupt the 2026 World Cup.
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Graham-McLay reported from Wellington, New Zealand.