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Their grueling pursuit of freedom reached a victorious conclusion when Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke approved humanitarian visas for the players at 1:30 a.m., in a confidential meeting that determined their future while the rest of Australia slumbered.
Worries had escalated for the footballers since Sunday night after reports emerged that one of the women had signaled for help as the team bus departed Gold Coast Stadium, marking the end of their Asia Cup journey.
The players were also concerned for their safety after being branded as traitors for not singing the national anthem during a match against South Korea.
Prior to this, Burke’s office had refrained from commenting on the situation, due to the delicate nature of the circumstances.
Public pressure for the Australian government to provide asylum reached its peak when Trump added his voice to the matter with a post on Truth Social around 1:15 a.m. AEDT.
“Don’t do it Mr Prime Minister, give ASYLUM. The U.S. will take them if you won’t,” Trump wrote, before sharing Pavlou’s post which claimed the government had to be “dragged kicking and screaming” to grant the women protection.
It appears efforts to help the football players flee Iranian persecution began days before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese admonished for making a “terrible humanitarian decision” by Trump.
Here is how the past 48 hours unfolded.
Burke flew to Brisbane on Sunday evening to speak with the team members who had expressed a desire to stay in Australia.
The players had been due to fly back home to Iran yesterday, but did not emerge from their hotel to travel the airport as planned.
It wasn’t until late last night that the women broke away from their handlers and were moved to a safe location by the AFP.
The exact circumstances of their escape is unclear – sources previously told SBS News that the women were not able to walk around the hotel unaccompanied and were escorted to a conference room to eat meals.
By 1.30am today, the humanitarian visas were officially granted by Burke.
“I signed off last night for their applications to go onto humanitarian visas and a little bit after 1.30am this morning the processing was completed by the Department of Home Affairs,” Burke said.
Albanese later confirmed that Trump called him just before 2am and the pair had a “very positive discussion”.
During that call, the PM delicately explained to Trump that the wheels had already been in motion before his public intervention.
“He was concerned about the Iranian women in the football team and their welfare and their safety if they returned home,” the PM told reporters.
“I was able to convey to him the action that we’d taken over the previous 48 hours and that five [members] of the team had asked for assistance and had received it and were safely located.”
At around 3am, Trump returned to Truth Social to shower Albanese with praise.
“He’s on it!” Trump wrote. “Five have already been taken care of, and the rest are on their way.
“Some, however, feel they must go back because they are worried about the safety of their families, including threats to those family members if they don’t return.
“In any event, the Prime Minister is doing a very good job having to do with this rather delicate situation.”
By 7am today, Burke had re-emerged and offered details of his long night in Queensland.
”They’re welcome to stay in Australia, they’re safe here, and feel at home here,” Burke told reporters today.
“There has been a lot of work that’s been going on in recent days to make sure that we had the maximum number of opportunities for these women to know that they could seek assistance if they wanted to and to have maximum number of opportunities to directly seek that assistance.
“This is my second night here in Brisbane, I was here the night before as well, and at that point we had conversations happening with some of the women but we didn’t know whether any would seek assistance.”
The remaining members of the team will be offered assistance if they ask for it, he added.
“We realise they are in a terribly difficult situation with the decisions that they’re making, but the opportunity will continue to be there for them to talk to Australian officials if they wish to,” Burke said.
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