By Don Riddell, CNN
(CNN) — Shiva Amini says that the lives of Iranian athletes can change with the snap of a finger.
Amini was a soccer player on Iran’s national futsal team until 2017, when she was pictured casually playing soccer with some male friends in Switzerland – a crime, she was told by Iran’s governing regime. She was also not wearing her mandatory hijab – another crime. She quickly learned that it would be too dangerous for her to return home and that nothing would ever be the same again.
“I lost everything, you know, my family, my safety, my home, even my dog,” she told CNN Sports. Amini still has money in an Iranian bank account that she cannot access. “You are in a new country with new people, with new culture, with new language and you have to start from zero.”
This is now the situation that some of the current Iranian soccer players are facing, after seeking asylum during the Asian Cup in Australia. Seven players originally sought asylum in Australia, but five withdrew their claims over the weekend.
“I can exactly understand what they are going through because I have been in their shoes,” she said.
The team’s ordeal began when they played South Korea on the Gold Coast, two days after the US and Israel attacked Iran. The players chose not to sing the national anthem before the game. Having been labeled traitors in Iran and following reports that some of their families had been threatened, the players then sang before their other two matches. When their tournament was over, some claimed asylum in Australia, while most of the squad returned home.
Whichever decision those players made, their future is now very uncertain. In such moments, Amini says that the regime presents athletes with an almost impossible choice.
“You have to think about your freedom or your family,” she explained, adding that the regime was so desperate for all the players to return that they even offered money for their compliance.
Amini says she has been in touch with some of the players at various stages of their ordeal. Some have messaged to say they cannot communicate because they are under the control of their traveling minders, quickly deleting text messages after sending them. Some admitted they “froze” while trying to determine their future, grappling with the enormity of their decision.
“I’m crying when they said, ‘Yes, we wanna stay.’ I was screaming, saying, ‘You have to stay, please!’” she recalled. “At the same time, I felt guilty if something happened to their family. It’s really complicated, it’s really hard.”
Those who are returning do not even know if their families are safe or alive because the government has shut down the internet in Iran.
It’s almost 10 years now since Amini was forced to start a new life, first in Switzerland, before moving to Italy and now New York. She hasn’t forgotten the painful way in which she was suddenly forced into exile, nor the ways in which life as a female athlete was difficult under the regime.
“In one word, I can tell you that it was humiliating,” she said. “They were using us as a tool to whitewash their crimes.”
On one occasion, she says she spoke with Mehdi Taj, who is now Iran’s soccer federation president, over a concern about sponsorship, but he was more interested