{"id":72846,"date":"2026-03-16T16:01:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T11:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chinaurdu.com\/eng\/?p=72846"},"modified":"2026-03-16T16:01:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T11:01:07","slug":"iran-womens-football-captain-zahra-ghanbari-decides-to-return-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinaurdu.com\/eng\/?p=72846","title":{"rendered":"Iran women\u2019s football captain Zahra Ghanbari decides to return home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Captain of the Iran women&#8217;s national football team, Zahra Ghanbari, has decided to return to her country after withdrawing her request for asylum in Australia.<\/p>\n<p>According to international media reports, Ghanbari will soon depart Australia for Kuala Lumpur before continuing her journey back to Iran.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, three players and one staff member had also withdrawn their asylum requests and opted to return home.<\/p>\n<p>The situation emerged after an Asian Football Confederation event in Australia, when six members of the Iranian women\u2019s team remained in the country following the conclusion of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Australian authorities had offered political asylum to the players. According to Australia\u2019s Interior Minister Tony Burke, the offer was extended to all players and support staff of the Iranian team.<\/p>\n<p>The offer was reportedly made amid concerns that the players could face punishment upon returning to Iran for not singing the national anthem during the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Arab media reports indicated that from the 26-member Iranian squad, six players and one staff member had initially sought humanitarian protection in Australia, while the rest of the team left Sydney for Kuala Lumpur on March 9 to return to Iran.<\/p>\n<p>With Ghanbari\u2019s decision to withdraw her request, only one player from the group now remains in Australia pursuing asylum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Captain of the Iran women&#8217;s national football team, Zahra Ghanbari, has decided to return to her country after withdrawing her request for asylum in Australia. According to international media reports, Ghanbari will soon depart Australia for Kuala Lumpur before continuing her journey back to Iran. Earlier, three players and one staff member had also withdrawn [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":72847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,136],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[213],"class_list":["post-72846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-latest","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Iran women\u2019s football captain Zahra Ghanbari decides to return home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chinaurdu.com\/eng\/?p=72846\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Iran women\u2019s football captain Zahra Ghanbari decides to return home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Captain of the Iran women&#8217;s national football team, Zahra Ghanbari, has decided to return to her country after withdrawing her request for asylum in Australia. According to international media reports, Ghanbari will soon depart Australia for Kuala Lumpur before continuing her journey back to Iran. Earlier, three players and one staff member had also withdrawn [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/chinaurdu.com\/eng\/?p=72846\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"China Urdu\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-03-16T11:01:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/chinaurdu.com\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Zahra-Ghanbari.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"721\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"LORD\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"LORD\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" 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