A Qatar official told Reuters that “extra security measures have been put in place during matches involving Iran following recent political tensions in the country.”
Asked about the confiscated material or the detained fans, a spokesman for the organizing supreme committee referred to Reuters to FIFA and Qatar’s list of banned items. They ban items with “political, offensive, or discriminatory messages”.
Controversy has also revolved around the Iranian team, which was widely seen to have shown support for the protests in their first game by refraining from singing the national anthem, only to sing it – if quietly – from their second match onwards. ahead.
Qimars Ahmad, a 30-year-old Los Angeles lawyer, told Reuters Iranian fans were grappling with an “internal struggle”: “Do you root for Iran? Do you root for the regime and the way protests are silenced?” Is?”
Ahead of a decisive US-Iran match on Tuesday, the US Soccer Federation temporarily displayed Iran’s national flag on social media without the Islamic Republic’s emblem in solidarity with protesters in Iran.
The match only added to the tournament’s importance for Iran, where the clerical leadership has long declared Washington “the Great Satan” and accused him of fueling the current unrest.
a ‘proud’ statement
Palestinian flags, meanwhile, are regularly seen in stadiums and fan areas and sold at shops – even though the national team did not qualify.
Tunisian supporters unfurled massive “Free Palestine” banners at the 26 November match against Australia, a move that did not seem to prompt action from the organisers. Arab fans have heckled Israeli journalists reporting from Qatar.
Omar Barakat, the football coach of the Palestinian national team, who was in Doha for the World Cup, said he had waved his flag at matches without stopping. “It is a political statement and we are proud of it,” he said.
While tensions have come to the fore in some games, the tournament has also provided a platform for some apparent conciliatory actions, such as the Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani wrapping a Saudi flag around his neck at a 22 November Argentina match.
Qatar’s relations with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt had been in cold storage for years due to Doha’s regional policies, which included supporting Islamist groups during the Arab Spring uprisings from 2011.
In another act of reconciliation between states whose relations were shaken by the Arab Spring, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan shook hands with Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sisi at an opening ceremony in Doha on 20 November.
Christian Kots Ulrichsen, a political scientist at Rice University’s Baker Institute in the United States, said the lead-up to the tournament had been “complicated by the decade of geopolitical rivalry following the Arab Spring”.
Qatari officials have had to walk “a fine balance” on Iran and Palestine, but in the end, the tournament “puts Qatar once again at the center of regional diplomacy,” he said.