• Hamid Sajadi orders probe into sexual assault of teen footballers.
• Parents of 15 players have filed a complaint against them.
• Shahr Khodro football club is headquartered in Mashhad.

Iran’s sports minister has ordered an investigation into allegations of sexual assault against teenagers at a football academy in the country’s northeast, according to official media on Saturday.

“A former media manager for the Shahr Khodro football team has claimed on social media that the parents of 15 players from this club and its academy have filed a complaint against the club and its coaches for sexually assaulting their children,” state news agency IRNA reported.

The gender of the juveniles allegedly assaulted was not specified in the report.

The Shahr Khodro football club is headquartered in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city.

“Minister of Sports Hamid Sajadi two weeks ago ordered an investigation into reports of an assault at a football academy for teenagers in Mashhad,” IRNA added.

According to the agency, Sajadi demanded a “strong response” against individuals in charge of the tragedy.

The relatives of the club’s players gathered outside the provincial football association’s headquarters on Friday, according to a post on the local newspaper Shahrara’s website. They were protesting the “tragedy.”

When their protest received no reaction, the families made the decision to go public, the daily stated.

When a member of the Iranian Football Federation’s ethics committee claimed that more than ten young members of a club had been sexually molested, a similar controversy broke out in 2017.

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