Iranwire – In a recent interview, Iranian football legend Ali Daei said he had been prohibited from engaging in any business activities in the country for the past year and a half.
Daei, a former German Bundesliga striker whose 109 goals at international level were long unsurpassed until Cristiano Ronaldo overtook him, has been a vocal supporter of the 2022-23 nationwide demonstrations and has repeatedly criticized the authorities for suppressing the protest movement.
In 2019, Daei revealed that the then-CEO of Saipa FC, “Mustafa Modaber,” was in reality Ghafoor Darjazi, a general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) linked to controversial incidents.
His stance against the government’s policies has apparently led to the current ban on his business activists.
This isn’t the first instance of the Iranian government using economic restrictions as a tool to silence dissent.
In 2017, 152 BBC Persian journalists were banned from engaging in business activities and from traveling in the country.