Why Iranians celebrated their soccer team’s World Cup elimination

Withhold your sympathy for the Iranian national soccer team, says Iranian activist and journalist Masih Alinejad. They represented the Islamic regime, she tells Ian Bremmer in an upcoming GZERO World interview, not the people.

Alinejad goes on to argue that the national team’s World Cup elimination (at the hands of the United States, no less) means that “the Islamic Republic is kicked out of the World Cup. It doesn’t have a global platform anymore to normalize its murderous regime.”

In a lively conversation, Bremmer presses Alinejad on why she believes that the Iranian soccer players did “too little, too late” to protest their government when they had the world’s attention.

Stay tuned for the full interview in next week’s episode of GZERO World. Check local public television listings.