Iran's Football World Cup team declined to sing their anthem before their opening match in a sign of support for mass protests back home after many fans accused the squad of siding with a violent state crackdown on the unrest.
Protests demanding the fall of the ruling Shi'ite Muslim theocracy have gripped Iran since the death two months ago of young woman Mahsa Amini after her arrest for flouting the strict Islamic dress code.
The players were solemn and silent as the anthem was played before the match with England at Khalifa International Stadium in Qatar, where thousands of Iranian fans in the stands shouted as the music rang out. Some jeered and others made thumbs-down gestures.
Team Melli, as the Iranian squad is known, have long been a huge source of national pride in Iran, but found themselves caught up in politics in the World Cup run-up, with anticipation over whether they would use football's showpiece event as a platform to get behind the protesters.
Iran were trounced 6-2 by England, but the drubbing was not enough to silence the Iranian fans, who pounded drums and horns throughout the game. Ahead of the match, no Iranian player had voiced support for the demonstrations by compatriots from all walks of life, one of the most sustained challenges to the cleric elite since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
"All of us are sad because our people are being killed in Iran but all of us are proud of our team because they did not sing the national anthem - because it's not our national (anthem), it's only for the regime," said an Iranian fan attending the World Cup who asked not to be named.
In the past, the Iranian team was a source of fired up national pride throughout the country. Now, with mass protests, many would prefer it withdrew from the World Cup being held just across the Gulf from their homeland.
Before travelling to Doha the team met with hardline Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. Photos of the players with Raisi, one of them bowing in front of him, went viral while the street unrest raged on, prompting an outcry on social media.
"I have mixed feelings. I love football but with all these children, women and men killed in Iran, I think the national team should not play," university student Elmira, 24, said, speaking by telephone from Tehran before the match.
"It is not Iran's team, it is the Islamic Republic's team."
Reuters
