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Iran’s national football team the team has made its own 2026 World Cup a chaotic debut: a sudden and prolonged end after a months-long war, a surprise set-up in Mexico after the US banned the team from being in the country in the middle of the games, and the political uncertainty that has spread around the world.
But for many Iranians, professional sports have always straddled the line between athleticism, identity, and politics. From a non-political game to a moment of sporting pride, the way Iran plays determines what is at stake in the World Cup. The Iranian team, on Tuesday morning, drew 2-2 in the opening round in New Zealand and will face Belgium and Egypt, then travel to Mexico and from the middle.
“I think it’s not good,” says Iranian athlete Hadi Tiranvalipour about the Iranian team flying from Mexico to the US before every game, even though he doesn’t care much about this year’s World Cup.
Tiranvalipour, like several famous Iranian athletes, knows the contradictions of following his sporting dreams among the country he has represented. Instead, he left everything behind in 2022: his family, friends, a lifetime in Iran, crossing into Turkey, before seeking asylum in Italy. The taekwondo athlete and TV presenter spent eight years in the Iranian national team and became their captain, winning countless national and international honors while representing his country.
But after speaking about the rights of Iranian people, especially women and girls, on TV, everything changed. What followed, Tiranvalipour says, was a swift backlash: “After the program ended, they shut down everything for me, and they shut down my sports career, they shut down my education.”
“I decided to leave all the medals and all the memories I made in my life,” he tells WIRED Middle East about leaving Iran, even though it was far from the end of his sporting journey.
Sports have always been a big part of Iranian society and are often a point of contact between identity and politics.
But the experience of being an athlete in Iran, and what the field represents on the international stage, is not always straightforward. There have been proud moments – when Iranian soccer players presented white roses to their US rivals before the 1998 World Cup, for example. But there have also been a number of high-profile threats and sporting controversies, such as Iran’s Olympic medalist Kimia Alizadeh, he is leaving the country in 2020.
As for Tiranvalipour, he had no choice but to continue his dream elsewhere, in what he describes as a “difficult” refugee journey amid the most uncertain times. “I didn’t have any other option, because I wanted to continue doing what I wanted,” he says. “Unfortunately, in Iran, sports are very difficult.” Two years after his departure, Tiranvalipour fulfilled his dream, representing the Refugee Olympic Team with the help of Italy while competing in taekwondo at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
