Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Ismaeil Baqaei has urged the country’s women footballers to return, after five of them were granted asylum in Australia.

“To Iran’s women’s football team: don’t worry — Iran awaits you with open arms. Come home,” he has written on X.

Baqaei has also assailed a strike on a girl’s school in Minab — which left 165 schoolchildren dead — and hurled accusations of “taking our athletes hostage in the name of ‘saving’ them”.

“The audacity and hypocrisy are stunning,” he adds.