Two more people connected to Iranian football team choose to stay in Australia

Australia has confirmed two more members of the Iranian football group have accepted an offer to stay in the country and will be given humanitarian visas.

“- Published Australia has confirmed two more members of the Iranian football group have accepted an offer to stay in the country and will be given humanitarian visas”

BBC

The pair – one player and one member of support staff - have now been reunited with the other five players who were granted visas to stay on Tuesday.

BBC

They were granted asylum after concerns about the team's safety when they did not sing the national anthem ahead of their match against South Korea last week.

It is understood the remaining Iranian players left Australia on Tuesday night local time - two days after they were knocked out of the Asian Cup.

The pair that remained were separated from the rest of the squad at their hotel on the Gold Coast – after indicating they would like to remain - and taken to a police facility in Brisbane, Immigration Minister Tony Burke said.

All will be fast-tracked to permanent residency, he said.

BBC

The offer to stay was reiterated to "most" of the remainder of the delegation at Sydney Airport before they were due to leave the country on Tuesday night, he continued.

Burke said a "very significant" police presence at Sydney Airport ensured players were separated from minders while they talked to officials one-on-one through a translator, and were given the chance to call family.

Burke said none of the players at Sydney Airport chose to accept the offer to stay, but he added that one person got on the plane "quite late" after conversations with family and that "that individual made their own decision".

“- Published Australia has confirmed two more members of the Iranian football group have accepted an offer to stay in the country and will be given humanitarian visas”

BBC

He said there had been no pressure on them to take the flight and that a small number of the travelling group were not invited to stay, thought to be a reference to Iranian government minders.

Local media reported that at least one person refused to board their later flight to Malaysia on their way back to Iran.

Some players accompanied by chaperones reportedly told reporters they wanted to go back to Iran.

Burke named the five who had already been granted humanitarian visas as Fatemeh Pasandideh, Zahra Ghanbari, Zahra Sarbali, Atefeh Ramazanzadeh, and Mona Hamoudi, and those women were moved to a safe location by police.

Members of the Australian-Iranian community gathered at Sydney Airport to support them and to protest against them returning to Iran, and a bus carrying team members was temporarily blocked by activists as it left their hotel on the Gold Coast; some carried the Lion and Sun flag.

BBC

It is not known what repercussions the team and their families might face in Iran after the players refused to sing the national anthem, and one conservative commentator on Iranian state media accused them of being "wartime traitors" and called for a harsh punishment.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the women were "safe here" and "should feel at home here."

US President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social demanding Australia "give asylum" to the women or "the US will take them if you won't," and later posted that he had spoken to Albanese, writing: "five have already been taken care of, and the rest are on their way."

The article notes the Trump administration had put all asylum decisions on hold at the end of last year, had stopped issuing immigrant visas for citizens from dozens of countries including Iran, and that last year two groups of Iranians, including people whose asylum applications had been unsuccessful, were deported from the US back to Iran.