Iran jails ex-national team’s goalkeeper

Iran has jailed a former goalkeeper for the national men’s football team after he published earlier this year a post deeply critical of then-Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, his wife said.

The Mizan news agency of the Iranian judiciary confirmed that Mohammad Rashid Mazaheri was under arrest but said he had been detained after seeking to illegally cross the border.

Mazaheri won a handful of caps for his country and was in the Iranian squad for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, but spent most of his international career in the shadow of Iran’s undisputed No. 1 goalie in recent years, Alireza Beiranvand.

The player, who also kept goal for top domestic teams, had in February published a since-deleted Instagram post in which he described longstanding supreme leader Khamenei as “only a dark and passing chapter” in Iran’s history.

The post came after January mass protests but before the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran, in which Ali Khamenei was killed on the first day.

The Persian-language news site IranWire, which is based outside Iran, said Mazaheri’s home had been raided on Feb. 25. His wife Maryam Abdollahi wrote on Instagram that her husband was now being held “in very harsh solitary confinement” in Urmia in northwestern Iran.

“Rashid always stood up for what he believed was right, and now he is paying the price for that courage with imprisonment in solitary confinement,” she said.