In November 20, soccer will take over every single TV thanks to Qatar 2022. The 32 squads are set to play, but now a National team is in risk of not playing this tournament after FIFA received a request to kicked them out from the next World Cup due to a very serious topic.
The groups are already been made and the 32 contestants will try to win one of the most important trophies in soccer. It will be a very tough competition where only one National team will be selected as the best one in the world.
But lately there have been tons of controversial topics with FIFA and human rights. After the organizers ruled out Russia from every competition, now they received a request to kick out a National team from Qatar 2022.
FIFA receives request to kick out Iran from Qatar 2022
Iran is one of the 32 National teams that acquired a spot in Qatar 2022. They belong to Group B alongside Wales, United States and England, but they could be kicked out thanks to a request people made to FIFA.
Nowadays, Iran is living a tough moment. The death of the 23-year-oldMahsa Amini, who was detained byIran’s morality police for not wearing a headscarf correctly, has started unprecedented protests around the country.
Unfortunately, 200 Iranians, including 23 children, have been killed in the protests. Some people see this as the biggest threat to Islamic state since they took the power in 1979.
As said before, Russia was banned from all FIFA competitions due to the armed conflict with Ukraine. In this case, Iran has also been under the spotlight for sending weapons to Vladimir Putin’s forces.
After these situations, a group of Iranian soccer players in collaboration withwomen’s rights activistAlinejad Masih, sent a letter to FIFA requesting the remove of Iran from the World Cup.
Also, the letter says that the country’s“brutality and belligerence towards its own people has reached a tipping point, demanding an unequivocal and firm disassociation from the footballing and sports world.”
In FIFAstatements, one of the most important rules is thatminoritiesshould not be excluded from attending matches as a part of their values and statutes, which has been Iran’s case with women throughout history. Nowadays, they can enter the stadiums, but have a designated area where they can be.
“FIFA’s historical abstinence from political quagmires has often only been tolerated when those situations do not metastasize into the footballing sphere … Football, which should be a safe place for everyone, is not a safe space for women or even men.
“Women have been consistently denied access to stadia across the country and systematically excluded from the football ecosystem in Iran, which sharply contrasts with FIFA’s values and statutes.”
It is now time for FIFA to make a decision and check if those values are compatible with theirs. With less than a month away from Qatar 2022, the organizersmust work quickly to have a response to this letter.
