Iran’s World Cup Team Turns Around from Protests and Sings the National Anthem! Is this due to pressure from the government? Some reports say that “the players’ families are being threatened.”

Last Updated on 12/01/2022 by てんしょく飯

The 2022 FIFA World Cup is currently being held in Qatar and has excited people around the world. Iran, one of the participating countries, had refused to sing the national anthem as part of its protest activities.

This time, however, the country has reversed course and sang the national anthem, attracting much attention.

The Iranian players did not sing the national anthem before their first match against Iran on November 21. This was seen as a sign of coordination with the growing anti-scarf protests in Iran.

Anti-scarf demonstrations are protests that began after the death on September 16 of a woman detained under the Islamic regime for wearing a scarf inappropriately. Currently, Iran is severely suppressing this activity, and many people, including children and women, have been killed or injured so far. The world media has criticized the Iranian authorities for their “brutality,” and there have been many protests from within Iran.

Iran’s national soccer players were also seen as showing their coordination in the protests by not singing the national anthem on the World Cup stage, but they turned around and sang the anthem at the November 29 match against the United States.

The players sang with their mouths open in a small gesture

همخوانی #سرود_ملی توسط بازیکنان کشورمان🇮🇷 pic.twitter.com/VkgZgWdFCf

— روزنامه ایران (@IranNewspaper) November 29, 2022

According to CNN, Iranian authorities reportedly threatened the families of Iranian national team players before the big game against the United States. They pressured them that if they did not “behave” in the match, “violence and torture” might occur in their home country.

Prior to the match with Iran, the U.S. Soccer Federation posted a redesigned Iranian flag on social networking sites; the Iranian flag posted on social networking sites was a three-color-only design with the national emblem in the middle crossed out. The U.S. Soccer Federation explained the reason for this in an interview with CNN, saying that it was posted for 24 hours only as a show of support for the women fighting for basic human rights in Iran. Iran criticized this and demanded that FIFA ban the U.S. from the World Cup. This appears to have deepened the hostility between Iran and the United States.