Senior Iranian government and football officials have accused Australia of taking asylum-seeking women's players 'hostage' after seven members of the team were given humanitarian visas this week. 'They martyred our girls in Minab, 160 of them, and in this incident they are taking our girls hostage,' Taj said. 'Our women's national team sang the national anthem and gave the military salute,' said Taj, who did not reference the fact the team also boycotted the song in the first place. 'The US president himself ... tweeted two tweets about a women's team [saying] "we welcome them and that they should become refugees". 'If the World Cup is like this, who in their right mind would send their national team to a place like this?'

Source: Metro March 11, 2026 04:53 UTC