Members of the Iranian girls’s nationwide soccer crew exterior the airport after they arrived within the japanese Turkish metropolis of Igdir, as they journey to their residence nation after 5 gamers withdrew the asylum claims that they had lodged in Australia over security considerations about returning residence resulting from not singing the nationwide anthem at a girls’s Asian Cup match earlier this month, in Turkey, on March 18, 2026.
| Picture Credit score: Reuters
The Iranian girls’s soccer crew crossed the Turkish border into Iran on Wednesday (March 18, 2026) to finish a fraught return journey from Australia, after 5 members withdrew asylum claims that they had lodged there.
Australia had granted humanitarian visas to 6 gamers and one help employees member after they sought asylum, saying they feared doable persecution in the event that they returned to Iran.
Considerations over their security surfaced when a number of gamers didn’t sing the nationwide anthem at a girls’s Asian Cup match earlier this month after the US and Israel launched the warfare towards Iran. Iranian state tv had labelled them “wartime traitors”. The crew, which flew into Istanbul on Tuesday, took a flight to Igdir in japanese Turkey on Wednesday morning.
The gamers emerged from Igdir Airport pulling their baggage and chatted in entrance of the terminal earlier than boarding a bus to the border. Certainly one of them briefly smiled and waved at a TV digicam earlier than the bus departed. After a visit of round two hours to the frontier, they went via passport management at the Gurbulak border gate earlier than crossing over into Iran.
The crew’s Asian Cup marketing campaign started simply as the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran, killing Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They have been eradicated from the match greater than per week in the past. 5 of those that had sought asylum in Australia subsequently modified their minds and determined to return residence, with Australian media reporting the newest withdrawal on Monday. They rejoined the remainder of the squad in Kuala Lumpur, the place the crew had been staying since leaving Sydney final week.
The Iranian Soccer Affiliation (FFIRI) mentioned final week those that had modified their minds would journey residence with the remainder of the crew “to as soon as once more be embraced by their households and homeland.”
Two gamers are nonetheless in Australia and have been pictured coaching with an area A-League membership.
Revealed – March 19, 2026 03:44 am IST