{"id":461552,"date":"2023-10-02T16:51:05","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T20:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/?post_type=news&#038;p=461552"},"modified":"2023-10-02T16:51:05","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T20:51:05","slug":"al-ittihad-refused-to-play-against-iranian-club-because-of-statue","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/news\/al-ittihad-refused-to-play-against-iranian-club-because-of-statue\/","title":{"rendered":"Al-Ittihad refused to play against Iranian club because of statue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Saudi Arabia club Al Ittihad refused to play against Iranian club Sepahan on Monday evening because of the presence of a statue of Qassem Soleimani installed on the pitch.<\/p>\n<p>The AFC Champions League match was called off and afterward, the Saudi federation told both Al Ittihad and Al Hilal to return to Saudi Arabia from Iran.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s yet to be decided what the consequences of this decision will be and when if the match will be played.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\ud83d\udea8 Al-Ittihad REFUSED to play against Iranian club Sepahan this evening because of the presence of a statue of Qassem Soleimani installed on the pitch!<\/p>\n<p>(Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OrientNews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@OrientNews<\/a>) <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sDLE1JptyV\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/sDLE1JptyV<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Transfer News Live (@DeadlineDayLive) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DeadlineDayLive\/status\/1708922469606658056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">October 2, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nSoleimani was amongst the most popular personalities in Iran, viewed by many as a &#8220;selfless hero fighting Iran&#8217;s enemies&#8221;, by others as a &#8220;murderer&#8221;. Soleimani was sanctioned by the United Nations and the European Union, and was designated as a terrorist by the United States in 2005.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saudi Arabia club Al Ittihad refused to play against Iranian club Sepahan on Monday evening because of the presence of a statue of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":461560,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"tags":[19706],"news_category":[14235],"gn_keywords":[19707],"acf":{"announce":"Statue of Qassem Soleimani was installed on the pitch","video":[]},"rank_math_focus_keyword":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_robots":"","rank_math_canonical_url":"","rank_math_facebook_title":"","rank_math_facebook_description":"","rank_math_facebook_image":"","rank_math_twitter_title":"","rank_math_twitter_description":"","rank_math_twitter_image":"","rank_math_snippet_shortcode":"","rank_math_primary_category":"","rankmath_seo":{"focus_keyword":"","description":"","title":"","canonical_url":"","robots":"","facebook":{"title":"","description":"","image":""},"twitter":{"title":"","description":"","image":""}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/461552"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/461552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":461562,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/461552\/revisions\/461562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461552"},{"taxonomy":"news_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_category?post=461552"},{"taxonomy":"gn_keywords","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gn_keywords?post=461552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}