After Embarrassment, Iran Calls For AFC Match To Be Rescheduled
Iran's foreign minister says an agreement exists between Iran and Saudi Arabia ensuring this week's controversially canceled soccer match will be rescheduled.
Iran's foreign minister says an agreement exists between Iran and Saudi Arabia ensuring this week's controversially canceled soccer match will be rescheduled.
The development follows the contentious events on Monday evening when Al-Ittihad FC was due to face Iran's Sepahan FC at Esfahan's Naghsh-e-Jahan Stadium but the Saudi team refused to play while a bust of former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani was on display.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said an approach to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) had been made requesting "a technical assessment of the incident" claiming "there is an agreement between us and Saudi Arabia for the game to be replayed at a later agreed-upon time".
The players refused to leave their dressing room in Monday night's protest against the homage to Soleimani who was associated with Houthi militia attacks on Saudi targets during the long-standing Yemen war before his death in a 2020 US airstrike in Baghdad.
Instead of participating in the match, the Saudi team promptly departed for Saudi Arabia from the airport.
Subsequently, the Iranian club announced its intention to file a lawsuit against the Saudi team with the AFC while Al-Ittihad attributed the match's cancellation to the hosts. A Saudi sports television program quoted an unnamed source from the club, claiming that the Iranians had been asked to remove the bust before the match.
Trying to calm things with Saudi, just months after the renewal of diplomatic ties, Amir-Abdollahian reiterated the importance of maintaining the progress in Tehran and Riyadh's relations, urging against allowing sports to be exploited as a political tool.
In 2018, Saudi Arabia designated Soleimani and other IRGC commanders as terrorists, accusing them of involvement in attacks on Persian Gulf shipping and oil facilities.
