Indeed, the WHOLE England team should all have worn a rainbow armband / wrist band / hair band under armour or whatever and all taken a yellow then done the same in the next game and all got banned for the 3rd game and so on.

FIFA would crumble under pressure of their PRECIOUS tournament being devalued for the TV audience.

Fcking hell. And we complain about the cost of living.

Which is relevant, for sure, but this stuff does contextualise it.

“Iran’s players have risked unemployment, humiliation, imprisonment, threats against their families from a depraved autocratic regime. England have shown that they are not even prepared to risk a yellow card.”

Sums it up nicely. Bunch of fecking posers and yet we’re forced to constantly listen to them and their pundit mates lecture us as if they’re on some higher plane of intelligence.

Almost makes me thankful for those rat criminals at FIFA for showing them up for what they are.

Iran's players should be offered asylum if they want it. Brave of them to speak out. I would have like England players to have worn the rainbow armband.

FIFA wanting to turn the clock back 100 years. So disappointing.

Understandably the Lionesses aren't happy with what's happening.

How many of the Iran squad play in Europe?

They could all ask for asylum and probably get it.

I wonder what Nohlman has to say about all of this? People power something he seems to have abandoned all hope in seeing

A while after posting the articles, I read that the team had attended a reception with the PM of Iran before departing for the tournament, and had been harshly criticised by the supporters of the uprising.

In another article interviewing match-going fans, several Iranians said that a win would immediately be seized upon by the regime, and would therefore prefer an England victory.

It's got to be heart-rending to find yourself in a situation like this.

So the Iranian people want freedom but the regime and their supreme leader are in the way of that, and more interested in continually funding small, pointless and hopeless terrorist cells that don't have a hope of achieving anything.

I just want to see Iran thrash the yanks when they play them......come on Iran.

This is why all this is BS and no one really cares about Migrant deaths of actually care about people who are LGBTQ or women wearing or taking off the Hijab. It's all virtue signalling from these organisations and also getting back at feeling hurt over not winning the rights to host the World Cup. They were all in on bribing people at Fifa. Qatar just paid more.

I don't agree that some governments, FAs and other organisations don't care; it's just that they care more about stuff like money, oil and gas. On an individual level, loads of people care, how much is not so clear. Most football fans just care more about football, sadly.