This Olympian defied Iran’s regime. Now he fears for the country’s women’s soccer team.
CNN
By Aleks Klosok, Amanda Davies, CNN
(CNN) — Iranian-born judoka Saeid Mollaei believes members of Iran’s women’s soccer team could be killed or put in prison when they return home after declining to sing the country’s national anthem at the Women’s Asian Cup in Australia.
As an athlete who faced a similar decision in 2019 to those soccer players, Mollaei, an Olympic silver medalist from the Tokyo 2020 Games, is concerned for their safety.
“Ninety-nine percent, maybe 100 percent, they are not safe for sure when they go back,” Mollaei told CNN Sports in an exclusive interview.
“Maybe, they’ll be killed. Maybe, they’ll go to prison. I don’t know,” he said.
“They’re fighting the regime for one word: freedom.”
Fears over the safety of the Iranian soccer players have been front and center after they were branded “wartime traitors” by an Iranian conservative commentator after they stood silent for the anthem in their opening match of the tournament against South Korea on March 2.
Members of the Iranian community subsequently urged the Australian government to intervene and offer the women refuge over concerns they’d be persecuted at home.
Seven members of the team – six players and a member of the squad’s support team – were originally granted humanitarian visas to remain in the country.
As of Sunday, five have withdrawn their asylum bids and left Australia.
The Iranian Football Association said they will meet up with the rest of the team in Kuala Lumpur before returning to Iran in the coming days.
Delivering a message in Persian during the interview, Mollaei called the country’s soccer players “heroes.”
“Heroes die once, but cowards die every day,” he said.
“You are courageous. You stood up for your future and for what your heart truly wants.
“Soon, we will all celebrate victory together in Iran.”
Five minutes to choose freedom
Mollaei knows better than most what the players have been going through in fighting a system that he says is “thinking all the time about politics” having found himself in a similar situation.
The judoka defected in the middle of the world championships in Japan in 2019 – fleeing to Germany after a dispute with Iranian team officials.
Mollaei, who was the defending champion, said he was ordered under government instructions to withdraw from his semifinal bout to avoid a potential gold medal match against an Israeli opponent.
Iranian athletes have long been prohibited from competing in any sport against Israeli opponents because Iran refuses to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a state.
He was granted asylum in Germany and has since become a citizen of Mongolia and most recently represented Azerbaijan.
“All the time (I was thinking) country or family in my head … but individual, heart and mind is so important. In just five minutes, I choose for my life,” he recalled of the excruciating choice that faced him in 2019.
“You come back to Iran you cannot again continue for your goal. I go to another country for my life, my freedom.
“It’s so hard – new life, new country, refugee – you can lose your everything, family, country, friends, everything, but when one person is so, so strong, you can do it.
“I can’t alone make change to this regime, but I’m working all the time. I’m one person for freedom.”
Triumph and tragedy
Almost seven years on from that fateful moment, he says he doesn’t regret his decision to defect but acknowledges the painful sacrifices that have had to be made.
Although the 34-year-old now has a family of his own in Germany, he says that contact with his mother back in Iran is “so hard,” particularly under the current regime.
He says since the outbreak of the most recent conflict that he writes five to six messages a day to her but receives no answers due to the ongoing internet blackout in the country.
He was only able to see his father once before he died over a year ago.
For Mollaei, though, it’s a particularly poignant memory.
He says it was a collective dream for he and his parents to win a medal at an Olympics and the judoka duly delivered with a silver medal at the 2020 Games in Tokyo.
“I visit my father and after I show my medal. I say, ‘Papa – I did it. This medal is for you and for mummy,’” he recalled.
‘We are one family’
Mollaei hopes those members of the women’s soccer team who have defected will now get to taste that same freedom that he’s experienced, be it playing the “Beautiful Game” without a hijab – the traditional headscarves that are compulsory for women under clerical rule in Iran – or pursuing their own individual goals.
It comes as doubts continue to persist over whether Iran’s men’s national soccer team will compete at this summer’s World Cup.
US President Donald Trump has said the team is “welcome” but that it is not “appropriate” for them to be there “for their own life and safety.”
Iran’s soccer federation hit back at his statement stating the US should be stripped of hosting the tournament if it “lacks the ability to provide security for the teams participating in this global event.”
Asked whether he still supports Iranian athletes and national teams on the world stage, his answer is unequivocal.
“One hundred percent yes – all the time. It doesn’t matter which sport for women and men. I’m supporting for everything. We are like one family,” he said.
A new dawn
The former world champion still harbors dreams of one day returning to his homeland under a new regime but admits it’s difficult to know when that will be.
As the US and Israeli-led strikes on Iran continue, he calls for continued international pressure on the theocratic regime, saying, “People cannot alone fight the regime because they have everything – the people have nothing.”
Speaking with pictures of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi – the autocratic last Shah of Iran, ousted in the 1979 Islamic Revolution – in the background, he’s asked whether he believes he’ll return to his homeland.
Taking a moment to pause, he says: “When I sleep at night, when I wake up in the morning, I think one day I’m back.
“Many people, many years ago, they think all the time with me, but now they are not in this life.
“I believe I can. … This is my dream. I’m thinking positive for this dream.”
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