In an encrypted telephone interview with Fox News Digital on Monday, an Iranian woman who called herself "Mahoora" and lives in southern Iran, said, "It's not just some people in Iran, it is the majority of people in Iran that want the U.S.

Mahoora explained that Iranians reject their national team, saying, "Because a soccer team should bring honor to its people.

And people are burying children after they were killed, and the soccer team of the mullahs met [President] Ebrahim Raisi and celebrates someone’s birthday and laughed together.

Mahoora noted that "after the soccer team of the mullahs won against Wales, the people of Iran did not celebrate.

The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ali "Khamenei is just [a] servant of Russia.

Mahoora cited three Iranian soccer stars who are not in Doha, Qatar — the site of the World Cup — but are standing with the Iranian people against Khamenei’s regime: Ali Daei, Ali Karimi and Iranian-Kurdish player Voria Ghafouri.

Tina Ghazimorad, the editor-in-chief of news at the London-based Manoto TV outlet, echoed Mahoora’s scathing criticism of the Iranian team being a wholly owned subsidiary of the Islamic Republic’s radical ideology and state security apparatus.

"The Islamic Republic hijacked the national team like everything else in Iran because they made it political.

The IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] is running sports teams," Ghazimorad said.

Ghazimorad said "Iranians are rooting for every other team playing against it.".

She continued, "For many Iranians, this is a national team and has not showed any reactions suitable to what is happening to Iranians in Iran.

Many people who lost their lives [in the protests] supported the national team.

According to Ghazimorad, the regime in Tehran shifts attention away from the failures of the Islamic Republic toward this manufactured enemy: "People are not suffering from sanctions but because of the actions of the Islamic Republic." Ghazimorad also the Islamic Republic’s "actions led to the sanctions.".

"Everything for the Islamic Republic is not pure sport or pure art because the Islamic Republic makes everything political," she said.

A telling example of Iran’s regime using sports as a political tool, said Ghazimorad, is the "team met with Raisi before they went to Qatar and the goalkeeper [Alireza Beiranvand] bowed to Raisi.".

Ghazimorad said Iranians want the national team to ramp up their protests against the regime.

"By standing there and not singing [the] national anthem, that is not enough," Ghazimorad said.

She said the Iranian soccer team could have "kneeled down like England’s team or wore black wristbands.".

The recent murder of 9-year-old Iranian boy Kian Pirfalak, who is considered to be the youngest victim of the purge of protesters by Iran’s rulers, triggered new fury in Iran and against the country’s soccer squad.

men’s national soccer team

team briefly deleted the emblem of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s flag from its Twitter account as a show of sympathy for the protestors in Iran

Iranian-American journalist and women’s campaigner Masih Alinejad told Fox News that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a "gender apartheid regime" because "half of the population in Iran are not even allowed to go to a stadium and watch [a] football (soccer) game."

Alinejad also said that the Iranian soccer team does not represent the people of Iran

Lisa Daftari, an Iran expert and editor-in-chief of The Foreign Desk, told Fox News Digital, "Imagine how dire the situation is for Iranians who are actually not rooting for their own team, as they see their national team as not an extension of the Iranian people but aligned with the Islamic regime."