The Iranian national team are deeply embittered and had strong words for American sports brand, Nike. Nike withdrew the squad’s supply of boots earlier this week due to global economic sanctions against the Asian country ahead of the World Cup in Russia.
“What Nike did to us was very wrong,” Karim Ansarifard said after the match. Winger Alireza Jahanbakhsh went further in his criticism: What they have done is a little bit disrespectful. In my opinion – and we had a meeting about this – politics has nothing to do with sport and with football. You don’t have to involve this kind of thing with this game. That is something that unfortunately this brand did, but the image they have [projected] at least for 80 million people in Iran is not a really nice image.”
Team Coach, Carlos Queiroz, who called for an apology from Nike, echoed Jahanbakhsh’s comments: “We train and we play under [bad] conditions. No pitches, no camps, no friendly games because of the sanctions. They are just football players. Let them enjoy football like all the other football players in the world. They are not against nobody or against nothing.”
Queiroz pleaded for fairness and unity, calling for the sport to be freed from the influence of global politics.