The record goalscorer for the Iran national football team was arrested on Tuesday night, according to the Kurdish human rights organisation Hengaw.
Ali Daei, who scored 109 goals in 149 appearances between 1993 and 2006, has expressed his support for protests over the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, an Iranian Kurd who died while in the custody of the state’s morality police after being arrested for not wearing the hijab. Her death has led to the largest protests in Iran for more than a decade. Daei was staying at the Hotel Kurd in Amini’s home city of Saqqez where a protest march to her grave took place on the 40th day after her death. A little over two weeks ago, authorities temporarily confiscated Daei’s passport to prohibit him from leaving Iran.
BBC Persia posted a video on Twitter from a police operation, during which Daei is said to have been taken to a government guesthouse under guard by the security forces. Shots can be heard in the video, though it is not clear yet whether anyone was injured. Daei’s manager has not replied to questions about the events. During his time on the field, Daei became an icon in his home country. He played in Germany between 1997 and 2002, making appearances for three Bundesliga clubs including Bayern Munich. Daei played 23 games for Bayern, scoring six goals.
For many years, he also held the international goalscoring record, which was broken by Cristiano Ronaldo during last year’s European Championship. When asked about his time wearing the jersey of the Iran national team, he told The Times last year: “After each goal people were so happy. And the more the people got happy the more pleasure I had. The difference to playing for clubs was that with the national team you were playing for your flag and the 80 million people.”
After retiring from football in 2007, Daei coached the national team between 2008 and 2009. His tenure ended prematurely and he suspected that the president at the time, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had been involved in his dismissal.
Daei was a critic of Ahmadinejad and when he encountered the politician on a flight to Tehran in 2019 he refused to sit next to him in business class. “I never was and never will be involved in politics. With all due respect to politicians, I prefer to be with the ordinary people,” Daei said. After leaving the national team in 2009, his name still carried enough weight to open doors to coaching opportunities at several first division teams in Iran.
In 2012 Daei was involved in a car accident in the Isfahan province while driving in his private vehicle after an away game. Amid reports that he had died, Daei survived and later returned to coaching. Daei has not had a job in football since he parted ways with Saipa Tehran in 2019, despite an apparent approach to become the nation’s sports minister or head of the Iranian Football Federation. Daei has a degree in metallurgy and has become part-owner of a steel company and an insurance corporation. He represented Iran at the World Cup draw in April.
Daei is not the only Iranian footballer who has been involved in the protests. The former Iran international Hossein Mahini was arrested in early October, while the former Bayern Munich player Ali Karimi and present Bayer Leverkusen striker Sardar Azmoun supported the protests publicly. “Shame on you all for how easily humans are murdered. Long live Iranian women,” Azmoun wrote in a posting a few weeks ago. The post has since been deleted.
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