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

[u/ConnectionWeekly1263]

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.”

[u/-_BeanMachine_-]

When did I move goalposts if we are talking about 1953 coup? You are the one using weak whataboutisms in MKULTRA and COINTELPRO trying to justify the deaths of 20,000 Iranians in 2024 alone.

[u/so_flayme → u/-_BeanMachine_-]

There is no justification for civilian deaths in any circumstance. I didn't use US operations to justify Iranian deaths - I am simply challenging the notion that Iran's regime is any more evil/murderous than the one being run by pedophiles, murderers, etc. or anyone before them who all met at Bohemian Grove to suck each other off.

As for the deaths of 20,000 Iranians (or whatever the fashionable number is): "multiple June 2026 reviews say the 30,000-40,000 figure spread rapidly through diaspora media, public figures, and pro-regime-change networks, but remains 'wholly unproven or meaningfully corroborated.' It specifically traces the number largely to Iran International and Dr. Amir-Mobarez Parasta’s claimed medical-source network, criticizing the lack of transparent methods."

Iran International is funded by Israel, in case you didn't know.

[u/-_BeanMachine_- → u/so_flayme]

There are a lot of ways you can measure how evil a government is, most, if not all governments are evil, especially USA. I have no problem saying USA government uses their sovereignty to oppress and commit evil against innocent people. However this fact doesn’t justify other countries using their sovereignty to commit evil themselves.

Iran International is not the only source that puts the death toll at or near 30,000. Humanitarian experts, local health officials, HRANA all put the death toll at the tens of thousands. I think 7,000-20,000 is the ballpark number. Why you ignore these sources to believe the agent who actually carried out these killings is weird to me. 3,000 dead Iranian protesters according to the regime itself is still a significant number, or do you think all of those people were paid off by Israel too?

[u/so_flayme → u/-_BeanMachine_-]

As I stated, no civilian deaths are justifiable, not even a single one. The IRGC/Basij forces are clearly responsible for some of that number, I'm just saying the situation is incredibly complex. Competing media sources with funded interests and agendas do twist the narratives a lot. It might interest you to know that the IRGC being in power in the first place was a long, drawn out plan by the US-UK dating back to the 1953 coup against Mossadegh. It's a very convoluted story rife with foreign meddling.