Five players sought asylum after refusing to sing Iran’s national anthem during a tournament in Australia
Australia has granted humanitarian visas to five Iranian female soccer players who sought asylum, citing fears for their safety after the team declined to sing the national anthem during a match on the Gold Coast last week.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Tuesday that the government is willing to provide similar assistance to the rest of the Iranian women’s team, the Lionesses, noting that “this is a very delicate situation and it is up to them” to decide.
“But we say to them, if you want our help, help is here and we will provide that.”
US President Donald Trump had earlier weighed in, urging Albanese to grant the players refuge, before saying the Australian leader was doing “a very good job” handling the situation.
The team’s campaign ended Sunday with a 2–0 defeat to the Philippines, leaving players facing uncertainty about returning to Iran amid an escalating conflict in their homeland. Iranian state television labeled the players traitors, according to reports, after they remained silent during the national anthem ahead of their opening loss to South Korea on March 2.
The team sang the anthem and saluted in later matches.
Craig Foster, a former captain of Australia’s men’s football team and now a prominent advocate for refugee rights and marginalized communities, told Bloomberg Television that he had expected the Asian Football Confederation to intervene, but that did not happen.
“It was very clear that at least some, if not all of the women were being placed in an environment of coercion, silencing, and a lack of safety and a lack of security and very high risk,” Foster told Bloomberg Television’s Haidi Stroud-Watts.
“We’ve seen this too often with women athletes across a whole range of sports and particularly in football,” Foster said. “It’s clear that we don’t have the systems and protocols in place to ensure that any of these women could have made an SOS claim, if you like, through a trusted and confidential and private source.”
Foster said the situation had reached a point where the Australian government felt compelled to step in given the clear risks involved. He noted a long pattern of systematic persecution of high-profile athletes who have spoken out against the Iranian government, documented over many years by groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
That history, he said, was why there had been deep concern for the group. He added that government intervention ensured five of the women were able not only to understand their rights, but to act on them.
“The urgent and immediate situation today is to ensure that the rest of the group are not removed from Australia before having an opportunity to understand their rights and to make a personal decision about whether they would like to exercise them.”
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told reporters discussions about the visas began in the early hours of Monday morning and intensified over the course of the day, when it became clear that five women were seeking to remain in Australia.
The Australian Federal Police moved them to a secure location, where Burke met them later that evening. He approved their transition to humanitarian visas, with the Department of Home Affairs finalizing the processing shortly after 1:30 a.m. Tuesday.
“I say to the other members of the team, the same opportunity is there,” Burke said. “Australia has taken the Iranian women’s soccer team into our hearts. These women are tremendously popular in Australia, but we realise they are in a terribly difficult situation with the decisions that they’re making.”
Burke said it is possible — and even likely — that not all of the women will choose to accept the offer to remain in Australia. He said the priority is ensuring they have full agency in making their decisions, with access to support and assistance available to them.
“I don’t want to begin to imagine how difficult that decision is for each of the individual women,” Burke said. “But certainly, last night, it was joy, it was relief, and people were very excited about embarking on a life in Australia.”
