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Subject of dispute: Soleimani bust in the stadium of Isfahan
Photo: Morteza Salehi / AFP
Saudi Arabia's football champion Al-Ittihad apparently did not take part in the Champions League match against Sepahan FC in Isfahan in protest against the bust of a former high-ranking Iranian military officer. As the Asian Football Confederation announced on Monday, the match was cancelled due to "unexpected and unforeseen circumstances".
According to media reports, there was a bust of Ghassem Soleimani in the Naghsh-e-Jahan Stadium. The general of the Revolutionary Guards was killed by a US drone strike in Iraq on January 3, 2020.
According to Arab News, Saudi players and officials refused to enter the stadium. The presence of the bust is completely irrelevant," said a Saudi official: "We asked them to remove the bust before the game, but they didn't." Subsequently, therefore, there was a dispute.
Saudi-affiliated Al-Ekhbariya reported that Al-Ittihad, which also has stars such as Karim Benzema, Fabinho, Jota and N'Golo Kante, has already left Iran for Saudi Arabia.
Iranian club announces complaint
Mohammed Reza Saket, executive director of Sepahan, told Iranian state television that his side would "immediately complain to the AFC" about the incident. The request from the Ittihad team was outside the sporting customs and violated the usual principles," Saket added, adding that the stadium in Isfahan has already hosted dozens of international matches with the same appearance.
Just recently, the first match of a club from Saudi Arabia took place in Iran. On September 19, Al-Nassr with Cristiano Ronaldo defeated the Iranian top club Persepolis 2-0 in Tehran. It was the first time in several years that a Saudi Arabian club had been hosted in Iran. For years, there had been political tensions between Tehran and Riyadh, and in March the regional powers in the Gulf announced a resumption of relations.
Ghassem Soleimani was the commander of the Quds Force, which is considered an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards abroad. Among other things, it plays an important role in the Syrian conflict and also helped keep President Bashar al-Assad in power. According to Tehran, the West should be grateful to Soleimani for preventing the advance of the terrorist militia Islamic State (IS) in the region.
In Iran, Soleimani is classified as a national hero for this. However, the U.S. saw him as a terrorist and the military face of Iran's interference in neighboring countries. Soleimani had been working on attack plans against U.S. targets and had therefore been wiped out, said then-U.S. President Donald Trump shortly after the drone strike.
ara/dpa/sid