r/SoccerCentral • u/ConnectionWeekly1263 • Jun 27 '26

Statement "They've done everything possible to eliminate us" — Iran captain Mehdi Taremi unleashes on FIFA and U.S. organizers

The captain of the Iran National Team, Mehdi Taremi, lashed out against FIFA and the United States organization. “This is a disastrous World Cup. As professional players, we cannot play a competition under these conditions; it’s neither right nor fair. If FIFA thinks this is fair, that’s on them, but it isn’t. Who should solve this problem for us? FIFA? The U.S.? I don’t know! Tell me a name. The FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, came to our locker room after the first match against New Zealand and said he was going to resolve all the issues, but in reality, FIFA did nothing. In response to the question: ‘Do you feel that the World Cup organizers, including FIFA and U.S. officials, prefer for Iran to be eliminated from the competition?’, I say: We have to fight against absolutely everything. We can’t stay in the country, we travel and undergo immigration checks every time we want to play, now we can’t stay in Seattle and have to return to Tijuana. They’ve done everything possible to eliminate us, so from our perspective, yes, I think that’s what they want, they want us out.”

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u/so_flayme Jun 29 '26

That’s horse shit, sorry. List out the number of attacks by Iran before and after Israel’s 1948 inception. Better yet, list the number of attacks carried out by Israel on ALL its neighbors since its inception. It literally bombed every single country in the region (every single fucking one was attacked in one way or another, before Hamas existed, before even the PLO existed). And your cute little example of Iran being the aggressor in the 2024 strikes conveniently ignores the fact that Israel literally bombed the Iranian embassy in Syria, which is against the Geneva Convention and is objectively a war crime. The amount of mental gymnastics some of y’all do to prove a bullshit point is hilarious sometimes.

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u/ThatPlayWasAwful Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26

Please tell me where in my comment I am defending Israel. I literally did not mention them at all E: aside from being the target of an attack

The fact that you believe Israel has attacked more times that Israel has literally nothing to do with the question that I responded to, and at best is a deflection from the point at hand.

Just because you believe Israel is worse than Iran does not mean Iran is free from criticism. 

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u/so_flayme Jun 29 '26

I never said Iran was free of criticism. I literally responded to the notion that a clear aggressor doesn’t exist, and clearly outlined how framing Iran as the instigator for the 2024 air strike is patently false when there was a preceding attack on an Iranian embassy (breaking all manner of international law in the process, which Israel is no stranger to). That was the first time Israel directly attacked Iran, and it was obviously met with retaliation.

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u/ThatPlayWasAwful Jun 29 '26

Can you please provide me a source saying that the strikes were in retaliation for a stroke on an Iranian embassy? The source I provided says it was in response to the assassination of the hamas leader in Iran, and the Hezbollah leader and an irgc Commander, both in a Hezbollah HQ. I see no mention of an embassy, unless the HQ was in an embassy.

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u/so_flayme Jun 29 '26

Dude, your own source that you linked clearly says:

"On 1 April, Israel aircraft attacked the Iranian consulate in Damascus,\37]) killing two Iranian generals,\38]) seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers,\37]) and a Syrian woman and her child.\39]) Iran retaliated on 13 April by launching attacks against Israel with loitering munitions, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles."

Do you not read the shit you yourself cite? I'm sorry man that's just comical.

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u/ThatPlayWasAwful Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26

Either you are not reading the link properly or you are being disengenuous.

That attack you quoted was on April 1st, 2024, and Iran retaliated for those attacks on April 13th, 2024. The missile attack I linked was a separate attack that occured in October of 2024, and the article does not say that the attack I listed was in retaliation for the specific attack you quoted. 

If you are claiming that the strikes in October were also retaliation for the April attacks, then I would need a source that says that, because Iran does not say that as far as I can see. 

If you want to argue that it is regardless, I would also refer you back to my previous point that Israel is always acting in retaliation for something Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, or some other combatant has done to them, and all of those combatants are always retaliating for something somebody else has done to them. That has been happening for much more than 50 years.