Yet the heart was there. On his X account (formerly Twitter), Al-Ittihad players were happy to play this second group match of the Asian Champions League in Iran. “The Al-Ittihad team has arrived at the stadium. Hearts full of enthusiasm and jerseys on fire. They are ready to conquer the terrain and leave their mark! ”, it was written. Before the turn of events takes a diametrically opposite direction because of a… statue.
Bearing the likeness of an Iranian general killed by the Americans in January 2020, Qassem Soleimani, this monument was not to the taste of the Saudi players, who refused to leave their locker room in protest, thus sealing the fate of the meeting.
The match between the two teams, counting for the Asian Champions League, was canceled “due to unexpected circumstances which had not been anticipated”, announced the Asian Confederation (AFC) without further details.
According to an official from Al-Ittihad, where Karim Benzema, Fabinho and N’Golo Kanté play in particular, it was the presence of a bust of the Iranian general near the pitch which shocked club leaders. “It’s just a football match and the presence of this bust is completely inappropriate,” he told AFP.
“We asked them to move it before going on the pitch for the warm-up but they didn’t do it. The team therefore returned to the locker room,” he explained.
The Iranian team’s general manager, Mohammed Reza Saket, immediately announced on Iranian state television his intention to file a complaint with the AFC over the incident. “The request from the Al-Ittihad club went beyond sporting customs and against usual practices,” he said.
The Isfahan stadium, where the meeting was to take place, “has hosted dozens of international matches in the same configuration”, he argued.
???? The Al-Ittihad team has arrived to the stadium! ????
With hearts full of excitement and jerseys ablaze, they’re ready to conquer the field and make their mark! pic.twitter.com/rnI0UtXEBH— Ittihad Club (@ittihad_en) October 2, 2023
Outside, the 60,000 spectators, who came in large numbers to see the Frenchman N’Golo Kanté but not Karim Benzema, who was out of this match, did not appreciate it by throwing projectiles on the lawn of the Naghsh-e-Jahan stadium Stadium in Isfahan.
The incident between the Al-Ittihad and Sepahan clubs comes as the teams of the two countries have only just started meeting again in their respective territories, and no longer on neutral ground, as has been the case for seven years.
The AFC gave the green light in August, five months after the agreement to resume ties between the two Middle East heavyweights concluded in March under the aegis of China.
Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia and Shiite-majority Iran severed relations in 2016 after the attack on Saudi diplomatic missions by demonstrators from the Islamic Republic who were protesting Riyadh’s execution of a Shiite cleric.
Al-Nassr, Cristiano Ronaldo’s Saudi team, played an Asian Champions League match in Tehran on September 19 against the Persepolis team, the first meeting of a Saudi club in Iran since 2016.
