Iranian soccer team: Three more players who accepted asylum in Australia have now changed their minds

Another three members of the Iranian women’s football team who accepted asylum in Australia have now changed their minds and will return to Iran.

Iranian state-run media have now seized on the about-face, with Tasnim News calling it a “disgraceful failure” for Australia and Donald Trump.

It means just three of the seven women who sought protection will remain in Australia, a week after they were branded “wartime traitors” by another Iranian TV commentator for not singing the national anthem ahead of their first match.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the players who had changed their mind were given repeated chances to talk about their options.

The government believed it had done everything it could to make sure the players were provided with the chance for a safe future in Australia.

“While the Australian Government can ensure that opportunities are provided and communicated, we cannot remove the context in which the players are making these incredibly difficult decisions,” Mr Burke said in a statement on Sunday.

“Australians should be proud that it was in our country that these women experienced a nation presenting them with genuine choices and interacted with authorities seeking to help them.”

Five players – captain Zahra Ghanbari, Fatemeh Pasandideh, Zahra Sarbali Alishah, Atefeh Ramezanizadeh, and Mona Hamoudi – sought asylum late on Monday night.

The next day, player Mohaddeseh Zolfi and Zahra Soltan Meshkeh Kar, a member of the team’s support staff, also decided they wanted to stay.

Iranian state media reported that it was Ms Hamoudi, Ms Sarbali and Ms Meshkeh Kar who left Australia on Sunday, publishing a photograph of them in Malaysia, and Ms Zolfi who had changed her mind late last week.

Tasnim News, which is associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said the women had “turned their backs on Australia’s seductive and political offer for asylum in a patriotic decision” and would “once again be in the warm embrace of their family and homeland” when they reached Tehran in coming days.

The outlet pointed to Donald Trump’s intervention over the fate of the soccer players – despite his social media posts and phone call with Anthony Albanese coming after the initial five had already been granted asylum – and accused Australia of having “an obedient and ridiculous presence in Trump’s playground”.

Mr Burke was personally involved in speaking with the players and their entourage who were in Australia for the AFC Asian Women’s Cub, making multiple trips to Brisbane where they were staying after being eliminated from the tournament.

Australian officials separated all the women at Sydney Airport ahead of them leaving the country on Tuesday night, and offered them the opportunity to speak with family in Iran and consider the offer of asylum.

Ultimately, no one else took up that offer and the rest of the group travelled on to Malaysia and were expected to return to Iran via Turkey.