Irans expat community sees chance to confront regime at World Cup

On a warm Sunday morning in Inglewood, more than 200 Iranian-Americans gathered outside SoFi Stadium with red, white and green flags draped around their shoulders — the lion and the sun in the center, the way it was before 1979.They were not there to cheer.They were there, one week before kickoff, with the cameras already in front of the stadium, to show Americans who actually represents Iran.And to many here, it isn’t the 11 players who will line up to represent the regime on June 15.This is the fight Southern California’s Iranian diaspora has been waiting for.

The World Cup has come to Los Angeles.That means the Islamic Republic has, as well.For the Iranian diaspora in Southern California — the largest concentration of Iranians anywhere outside Iran — the 2026 World Cup is not a sporting event.

It is an arena for geopolitics.And after 47 years of watching the Islamic Republic claim the name, the flag, the team and the global microphone that belongs to a 2,500-year-old civilization, the community has decided to use that arena.The fight started in May when FIFA quietly moved to prohibit fans from displaying Iran’s pre-revolutionary lion-and-sun flag in World Cup stadiums, renewing the controversy that shadowed the 2022 tournament in Qatar.

The pretext is FIFA’s “no political symbols” rule.California's top news, sports and entertainment delivered to your inbox every day.

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Never miss a story The reality is that the Islamic Republic’s football federation pressured FIFA to ban the flag, knowing that it represents not only pre-1979 Iran before their reign, but is now synonymous with freedom and democracy, and the Iran of the future that Iranians have been fighting for.For Iranians, the lion-and-sun is not a fringe banner.It is not, as FIFA’s lawyers would have it, a “political” object o...