Sahba Rashtian would have been 24 this week. Instead, her sister Yalda posted pictures of her daffodil and sunflower-strewn grave on Instagram.
“You are not here, and look what has become of me,” Yalda wrote on the social media platform. “I am sorry that I was not a good sister to you. I am sorry that the future we imagined has become impossible.”
Sahba was a women’s football assistant referee and illustrator from the central Iranian city of Isfahan. She was shot dead with live ammunition by security forces during protests in January, according to human rights groups based outside Iran.
She was among dozens of Iranian footballers, from former professionals to youth team members players, killed during demonstrations that represented the greatest popular challenge to the country in its 47 year history.
Memories of the footballers killed in January hang over the World Cup, in which Iran is competing against the backdrop of months of war between Tehran and the US host.
Athletes were among the victims of a brutal state crackdown on January's unrest, which began over economic strife and morphed into demands for regime change. Human rights groups recorded an overall death toll of at least 7,000 people; some reports put the number many times higher.
“The blood of our children cannot be wiped away from the streets and alleys of Iranian cities, so our mourning has no end,” Ali Karimi, a former national football team player turned human rights activist, wrote on X this week.
Team Melli, as Iran's national team is known, will compete against Belgium on Sunday after drawing 2-2 against New Zealand last week.
There has been significant criticism over Washington's treatment of the Iranian team. Players have not been granted permission to stay in the US between games and are instead flying in from neighbouring co-host Mexico for every match. They have also undergone stringent security checks and nearly a dozen delegation members were denied US visas.
Political tension “undermines the joy of the World Cup,” said striker Mehdi Taremi at a press conference this week.
Divides over support
Support for the Iranian national football team had at times in the past been a uniting cause among people with wildly varying political viewpoints in Iran. But that began to sag after the Women, Life, Freedom protest movement in 2022, when many Iranians were dismayed at football players’ failure to take a stand over state violence. Those protests erupted following the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a young woman whom Iran’s morality police had accused of wearing her hijab incorrectly.
This year is more controversial than ever, “because of the January massacre and the arrests of athletes and people every day,” Shiva Mahbobi, spokeswoman for the London-based Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran, told The National. “People were more outraged about the team attending.”
In the current tournament, some Iranians are disappointed that players are not using the World Cup's global reach to talk about the dangers athletes face in Iran. Some Iranians in the US have held protests, accusing the government of Tehran of using the tournament to distract from its suppression of political dissent.
Former Iranian ice climbing bronze medallist Zohreh Abdollahkhani is a board member of Human Rights for Sport, an organisation set up in 2023 in Norway to campaign for athletes’ rights. The organisation has documented the killing of 44 footballers in the January protests.
She opposed the restrictions and “tons of discrimination” that Iran’s players have endured at the hands of US authorities. It’s “absolutely unacceptable,” she told The National.
But she is also disappointed that Iran’s players have not spoken up over the footballers killed and detained in January.
“The professional footballers that you train with, you compete with, whom you know in person, have been arrested, have been tortured, have been killed and you decided to stay silent,” Ms Abdollahkhani said. “You were not loyal to your very own football community. Why should I be loyal as a fan?” She went to sleep instead of watching Iran’s match against New Zealand, she said.
Other Iranians who witnessed January’s protests are supporting the national team.
Farhad, a resident of Germany who was on a trip home to Iran during January’s demonstrations, said he would be watching Iran’s matches “with enthusiasm.” The war with the US and Israel demanded “more solidarity” among Iranians, he said, using a pseudonym for security reasons.
“You can't expect them [the team players] to be political and put their spouses and families at risk,” he added.
Campaigners have been dismayed by Fifa’s failure to respond to multiple open letters sent since the January protests, calling for the organisation to demand the release of detained Iranian footballers and reassess Iran’s participation in the World Cup.
The killing of athletes in January raises “serious concerns about the conditions under which sport operates in Iran,” a letter from Human Rights for Sport and other civil society organisations said.
Fifa did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The National. Its website says the organisation is, “committed to respecting all internationally recognised human rights".
Detained footballers
At least 10 footballers remain in detention after being arrested over their participation in the January protests, according to tallies calculated by The National. Some are at imminent risk of execution. They include Ehsan Hosseinipour Hesarloo, a player for Tehran-based Jahan Gostar club, whose death sentence has been upheld by Iran’s Supreme Court.
Alongside two other teenagers, he was charged with the killing of two members of Iran’s volunteer security forces, known as Basij, and the arson of a mosque. Mr Hesarloo has been subjected to “severe torture and pressure in detention,” and denied legal representation, according to the Norway-based Iran Human Rights Organisation.
Amirhossein Ghaderzadeh, 19, a youth player for Sepahan Football Club, was forcibly disappeared after taking part in protests on January 9 and stripped naked during interrogation, Amnesty International said.
Youth victims 'shocking'
The number of very young footballers killed in January was much higher than in previous rounds of protests, Ms Abdollahkhani said.
“It's absolutely shocking,” she said. “I don't think my heart will ever recover after doing that documentation.”
The youngest among them was 15-year old Pedram Khaloui, a youth player for Sepahan Isfahan. He was killed on January 9 after being hit in the chest by a live bullet, an uncle later told the Czech Republic-based Radio Farda. “He was covered in blood,” the uncle recounted.
Other footballers killed include former professional player Mojtaba Tarshiz, 47, who was shot dead during protests in the capital Tehran. A former player for premier league teams including Tractor Sazi, Mr Tarshiz had gone on to become a fitness coach and assistant manager for various Iranian teams.
In one of his last Instagram posts, published to a soundtrack of Romanian DJ Mentol’s song Beautiful Life in October last year, he thanked colleagues for helping him progress in his career as a coach. “I will never forget these guys, who are made of the finest stuff,” he wrote.
Mohammad Hajipour, a former goalkeeper for Iran's national beach football team, was killed in protests in the northern city of Rasht on the evening of Thursday, January 8. Authorities would only release his body for burial on condition that his family falsely attributed his death to a traffic accident in the official death certificate, the Norway-based Hengaw rights organisation said. Relatives of other victims from the protests have previously reported similar experiences.
Another female footballer killed was Zahra Azadpour, 27, a player for the Mehrgam Pardis women's football team. She was shot dead during protests in Karaj, near Tehran, reported Dadban 2021, a group of lawyers based outside Iran. Her family searched for three days before finding her body.
