Lives at risk: Iranian women’s soccer team refused to sing national anthem in Australia

by WorldTribune Staff, March 9, 2026 Real World News

President Donald Trump said Australia is taking his advice and offering asylum to players on the Iranian women’s soccer team who risk severe punishment, including the possibility of being executed, if they return home after refusing to sing their country’s national anthem before a match at the Asian Cup tournament in Australia last week.

Initially, Trump said Australia was set to return to the women to Iran.

The Iranian women’s soccer team faces harsh punishment if they return home, President Donald Trump said. / Video Image

“Australia is making a terrible humanitarian mistake by allowing the Iran National Woman’s Soccer team to be forced back to Iran, where they will most likely be killed,” Trump wrote in a post to Truth Social on Monday morning. “Don’t do it, Mr. Prime Minister, give ASYLUM. The U.S. will take them if you won’t.”

Later on Monday, Trump stated that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was “on it” and “doing a very good job” given “this rather delicate situation.”

“Five have already been taken care of, and the rest are on their way. Some, however, feel they must go back because they are worried about the safety of their families, including threats to those family members if they don’t return,” Trump wrote.

The team arrived in Australia just before America and Israel launched their joint strikes on Iran. Iran was eliminated from the Asian Cup tournament on Sunday following a loss to the Philippines.

Iranian state TV had branded the Iranian athletes “wartime traitors” after they stayed silent while Iran’s national anthem played before a match with South Korea on March 2 — a move widely seen as a rebuke of the hardline clerical regime.

“The team reversed course and sang the anthem before their second match against Australia a few days later, igniting concerns that they faced government coercion,” Novi Zhukovsky wrote for The New York Sun on Monday. “After the team was eliminated on Sunday, at least one player gestured a ‘Help’ hand signal from the team’s bus as they departed the stadium in Queensland, according to videos taken at the scene.”

Shortly after the team’s loss, the Australian Iranian Council launched an online petition calling on the Australian government to allow the players to remain in Australia while “fears for their safety remain.”

“Where credible evidence exists that visiting athletes may face persecution, imprisonment, coercion, or worse upon return, silence is not a neutral position,” the petition reads. “The current wartime environment has intensified repression, fear, and the risks faced by anyone publicly perceived by the Islamic Republic as disloyal.”

As expected, many American leftists raised objections to Trump’s offer, insisting the women will be perfectly safe upon returning in Iran because, well, Trump said they wouldn’t be.

Others said the U.S. shouldn’t be taking in any more refugees.

Townhall.com’s Amy Curtis pointed out: “Biden took in about 200,000 Afghan nationals after his administration let the Taliban take over the country. There are anywhere from 23 to 28 players on the Iranian team roster. That’s a big difference.”

Curtis added: “This is a no-brainer. They’re safe in Australia, where they should remain. But should Australia decide to send them back to Iran, they have another option. It wouldn’t be unheard of for a Western nation to deny Muslim women asylum, either. Last April, the U.K. denied an Afghan woman asylum, saying the Taliban didn’t pose a threat to her safety.

“But you have to love the Left’s hypocrisy here. They’ll gladly march in Handmaid’s robes to protest the Republicans, but when it comes to the real oppression of women, they either shrug or sympathize with the Islamists who are doing the oppressing.”

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