The two countries restored diplomatic relations earlier this year in an agreement brokered by China.
After the countries severed diplomatic relations in 2016, games usually took place in neutral venues. The soccer tournament, which features 40 teams from around Asia, is the first since 2015 to see Saudi Arabian and Iranian teams play on each other’s soil. On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia's Al Hilal club defeated Iran's Nassaji in a match in the Iranian capital, Tehran. The AFC said the match was canceled “due to unanticipated and unforeseen circumstances,” without elaborating. He said the stadium had been inspected and approved by the AFC prior to the match. Mohammad Reza Saket, the chairman of Sepahan, told Iranian state TV late Monday that Al Ittihad had made “demands that were outside of the norms of sport,” without elaborating. Neither statement mentioned the Soleimani statue, one of three placed around the stadium. The Saudi Arabian Football Federation put out a statement expressing support for the team. Saudi officials have not commented on the walkout.Īl Ittihad released a statement hours after the walkout saying the team had left the stadium and flown home because it was told by league organizers that the match would not take place as scheduled. He went on to say that relations with Saudi Arabia are moving in the right direction, and that he had been in direct contect with his Saudi counterpart on Monday night. “We should not allow sport to be used as political leverage” by any side, he said.
Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told reporters Wednesday that the two sides would reschedule the match and urged the Asian Football Confederation to review the incident on a “technical" basis.
drone strike in neighboring Iraq in 2020. Soleimani, who commanded the elite Quds Force of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, is seen as a war hero by Iran's clerical rulers and their supporters but vilified by Western and many Arab nations because of his role in leading Iran's military activities across the region.
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