This week, Iran’s women’s football team is expected to touch down in Australia to compete in their second Women’s Asian Cup. But exactly who will arrive, or what condition they will be in when they get here, is anyone’s guess.
Amid a backdrop of anti-government protests and subsequent violent crackdowns by the authorities over the past few months, Iran’s top women footballers have been struggling to prepare for one of the biggest tournaments of their lives.
“The prevailing mood among the players appears to be one of anxiety and emotional strain,” said Raha Pourbakhsh, an Iranian sports journalist based in London. “Many are balancing their professional role as national representatives with personal concerns about safety, family, and potential repercussions.”
As the start of the Asian Cup nears – the Matildas kick off the tournament on Sunday while Iran are due to play their first game a day later on the Gold Coast – concerns have been growing around the welfare of the women’s national team.
Due to an internet blackout as a result of the government crackdowns, contact with players and staff in Iran has been almost impossible. While the lack of a players’ union has meant even Fifpro, the global players’ association, has had no knowledge of the exact location or status of the team. Fifa and the AFC did not respond to multiple requests for information.
It is understood all members of the Iranian team and staff have been issued with visas by the Australian government, but two players have already withdrawn from the team.
One of those, defender Kousar Kamali, wrote on her Instagram: “When the heart is wounded and the soul is tired, football is no longer a refuge. I can’t pretend everything is normal.
“This decision is not out of anger, it is out of awareness. It is not out of disrespect, it is out of respect for my conscience. Today, I say goodbye not to football, but to the national team, hoping for the day when I can play for the people again with a calm heart.” The post has since been deleted.
Others may follow suit, but there are major risks involved. “Even minimal social media activity – such as posting an Instagram story or leaving a supportive comment – can carry serious consequences,” Pourbakhsh said. “These reportedly include pressure directed at family members, contractual penalties or termination, exclusion from camps or matches, and warnings of possible legal repercussions.”
One of the only ways athletes can publicly express themselves is through refusal to sing the anthem or celebrate successes, as seen when women’s team Bam Khatoon stood silently after lifting the 2025 league championship trophy, though Pourbakhsh says players may be pressured to sing and celebrate to “project an image of normality”.
Another source told Guardian Australia that players’ phones are being monitored, and that some members have been incentivised to report on their teammates’ anti-regime views. Some players who were called up for an Asian Cup preparation camp allegedly declined the invitation altogether.
This uncertainty is a far cry from the team’s tournament debut in 2022. Upon qualifying for India, the players became national heroes; their success a symbol of the extraordinary barriers Iranian women have had to overcome to participate in sport and public life.
Before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, women’s football was flourishing in Iran. Tehran, the capital, had its own women’s national league run by the Iran Damsels and Ladies Association, while the national team was founded in 1971, years earlier than most other Asian nations, including Australia.
But from 1980 onwards, as the country was slowly suffocated by a conservative Islamic leadership, women’s football – and all women’s sport – collapsed.
It would take decades before women were gradually permitted to participate in sport again, though they did so under strict supervision and dress codes, including wearing the mandatory hijab, which saw them banned by Fifa for three years in the 2010s. To this day, women are still not permitted to enter most stadiums in Iran, though women athletes persevere.
Iran’s presence at the 2022 Women’s Asian Cup, then, was the result of a generational struggle for freedom for women footballers and resistance to an oppressive regime. Now, coming into the 2026 edition, another revolution is taking place which could fundamentally shape the team’s future once again.
In late 2025, protests erupted across Iran in opposition to the Islamic fundamentalist regime which oversaw decades of repression, worsening living conditions, and economic decline. Authorities responded with lethal crackdowns and massacres of protesters, according to Amnesty International, as well as cutting off phone and internet services throughout the entire country.
Among those arrested and killed have reportedly been dozens of athletes, including at least one professional women’s footballer, sparking an open letter from former men’s national team players calling on Fifa to condemn the government’s response and protect athletes under their own human rights policy.
