Thanks in part to Trump, the players were supposed to gain asylum in Australia. Now, FIFPRO reportedly can't reach them, one was forcibly put on a bus by her "regime-connected minders", and one "changed her mind."

Until U.S. President Donald Trump advocated for them, few had heard about the small stand the Iranian women’s soccer league took against the Iranian regime last week.

Unlike U.S. Olympic athletes, who were perfectly free to criticize their home nation, its government, and anything else they pleased during the recent winter games, Iranian athletes aren’t allowed such democratic luxuries.

Like soldiers in the military, Iranian athletes are serving at the pleasure of a rigid governance structure that will brook no public criticism of the regime. Iran’s athletes are not allowed to protest the political situation in Iran, full stop.

So when the women’s female soccer team refused to sing the Iranian national anthem, they did so under peril of death. At the very least, these types of actions could have resulted in prison time, reeducation, fines, and even violent retaliation against family members.

Iranian state media figures responded by calling them “wartime traitors,” with one presenter saying traitors in wartime should be dealt with severely. Later, when the team sang and saluted before another match, human-rights advocates feared coercion. That fear was not paranoia. It was the obvious conclusion from the facts already on the table.

Fortunately for the athletes, President Trump spoke up for them, asking the Australian government (where the silent protest took place) to offer the team asylum.

Trump offered asylum in the U.S. if Australia declined. According to the Australian authorities, they were already in the process of doing so when Trump spoke up.

The team, it seemed, would be safe. Free.

Are they?

Now, we are told the Iranian women’s soccer team in Australia was accompanied by “minders.” We are told there were “regime-connected staff.” We are told communications may have been monitored, that the players were not allowed to move freely, and that some were under constant security presence at their hotel.

There are videos.

At a certain point, that stops sounding like sports administration and starts sounding like a hostage crisis.

What happened in Australia this week was not some abstract drama. It was a live test of whether women representing the Islamic Republic could safely make a free decision about their own futures while standing in the shadow of a regime that had already branded them traitors. 

FIFPRO, the global players’ union, said it was “really concerned” and had been unable to contact the players. That alone should have set off alarm bells everywhere. If professional athletes on foreign soil cannot even be privately reached, what exactly are we pretending is normal here?

Australia eventually granted humanitarian visas to five players after they slipped away from their handlers and were moved by police to a safe location. 

But then ABC reported that the players were not allowed to move freely and that staff believed to be connected to the regime were embedded with the team.

According to 9News, footage from the hotel departure appeared to show members of the “regime-connected” staff pulling one woman toward the bus. AP likewise reported outrage after outlets published an image that appeared to show a woman being led by the wrist, with another hand at her shoulder. This did not look like a group of freely traveling athletes. It looked like pressure, panic, and control.

Where are they now? T Reuters reported that two more players sought asylum after the first five were granted protection. AP reported that seven women had accepted humanitarian visas before the airport transfer, but that one later changed her mind. The rest of the team boarded flights out of Australia after individual meetings with officials. 9News reported that some of those departing were seen in tears, and that some personnel connected to the delegation were denied visas because of alleged IRGC links.

So it seems that some of the women are now in safe locations in Australia. Some have already left. At least one appears to have reversed course. And for those who returned, the public still does not know which decisions were truly voluntary, which were shaped by fear for family members back home, and which were made under direct intimidation.

The scandal is that in a free country, on foreign soil, women may still have been unable to act like free human beings. The question is not whether the Iranian women’s soccer team was safe in Australia.

The question is whether they were ever, even for a moment, actually free or safe.

Because until the regime is well and truly toppled in Iran, they won’t be.

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)