RIYADH: A football match between Saudi and Iranian teams was cancelled on Monday night amid a dust-up over a statue of slain Revolutionary Guards comm...
A bust of slain Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani on the pitch at the Naghsh-e-Jahan Stadium in Isfahan during the AFC Champions League Group C football match between Iran’s Sepahan and Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ittihad. AFPPIX: A football match between Saudi and Iranian teams was cancelled on Monday night amid a dust-up over a statue of slain Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani, a club source told AFP.
“The club administrators found a bust of Qasem Soleimani in the walkway to the pitch. It’s a pure football game and presence is totally irrelevant,“ the official said. Soleimani commanded the foreign operations arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and remains a revered figure in Iran following his 2020 assassination.
“The request of the Ittihad team was outside of sports customs and against the usual principles,“ he said. The local news agency Tasnim said the statue of Soleimani was “part of” the stadium and had no connection to the match. That agreement was the latest sign of rapprochement stemming from a surprise China-brokered deal announced in March that saw the long-time rivals agree to restore diplomatic relations and reopen their respective embassies following a seven-year rupture.
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