‘Sometimes you feel very sad’: what the Iranian football asylum seekers can expect from life in Australia

Tooba Sarwari fled Afghanistan after the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban. Photograph: Hilary Wardhaugh/The Guardian

If anyone knows the emotional turmoil the Iranian football players have experienced in the past 48 hours, as they leave their homeland behind for a new life in Australian, it’s Tooba Sarwari.

The Afghanistan-born cricket player left everything behind when she fled to Australia on a humanitarian visa in 2021 amid the fall of Kabul.

The Iranian footballers’ individual experiences are as unique as they are unenviable, says Sarwari, who arrived on a humanitarian visa amid the fall of Kabul.