Sardar Azmoun after being excluded from the national team: Many want to ruin me.
Sardar Azmoun, the experienced forward of Iran’s national football team, reacted for the first time to his exclusion from Iran’s squad list for the World Cup in the United States.
The Shabab Al Ahli Dubai forward wrote in an Instagram story on Tuesday, May 18: ‘It’s true I’m not with you, but since you are my friends, there’s no reason not to wish you success. Many want to ruin me, but these words are not true at all. Good luck, guys.’
After the killing of protesters during nationwide protests in Iran, Sardar Azmoun tattooed the phrase ‘From the blood of the youth of the homeland, tulips have bloomed’ from a famous poem by Aref Qazvini on his hand.
In December 2025, he also posted a video about those killed in the protests, writing, ‘These were not stories, they were real. We will never forget you.’
Following these positions, the Islamic Republic’s judiciary seized his assets on charges of collaborating with the enemy.
In recent months, the release of an image of Sardar Azmoun alongside Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, after the Islamic Republic’s attacks on the United Arab Emirates, received widespread attention in the media and on social networks.