The U.S. Soccer Federation posted a graphic on all its social media on Saturday with an altered Iranian flag.
US Soccer created a graphic to represent the Group B standings in the FIFA World Cup, of which Iran is second and the United States is third. The graphic omitted the Islamic emblem representing “Allah” as the four curves with the sword symbolically means “there is no god but God.” Eventually, all the posts with the graphic were deleted from Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
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US Soccer claimed in a statement to CNN that it displayed an altered flag to demonstrate “support for the women in Iran fighting for basic human rights” and only planned to keep the posts up for 24 hours. Subsequent posts will include the true flag.
“By posting a distorted image of the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran on its official account, the US football team breached the [FIFA] charter, for which a 10-game suspension is the appropriate penalty,” Iran’s state-sponsored media Tasnim News Agency tweeted Sunday. “Team USA should be kicked out of the World Cup.”
By posting a distorted image of the flag of the Islamic Republic of #Iran on its official account, the #US football team breached the @FIFAcom charter, for which a 10-game suspension is the appropriate penalty.
Team #USA should be kicked out of the #WorldCup2022 pic.twitter.com/c8I4i4z3Tv— Tasnim News Agency (@Tasnimnews_EN) November 27, 2022
“The USA Soccer Twitter account posted a graphic of the standings in its group. When displaying the Iran flag, they posted a flag without the emblem in the middle. The emblem is ‘Allah,'” comedian Amer Zahr explained. “The West has always said to keep politics out of sports … except when it’s supporting Ukraine or attacking Iran, I guess. No class.”
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FIFA has not made a public statement regarding the graphic. It did claim sole authority to “determine the exact ceremonial elements to be put in place at each preliminary competition match. FIFA and the confederations shall issue the participating member associations with guidelines for the implementation of these elements,” according to its regulations.
Iran is slated to face off against the U.S. on Tuesday, and should Iran win, it would eliminate the U.S. from the tournament.
