World football’s governing body has asked Iran to explain reports that it has “retired” members of its national team for wearing green opposition wristbands.

Fifa has written to the Iranian football federation about the fate of four players who used Iran’s World Cup qualifier against South Korea last week to show support for Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated candidate in the country’s hotly disputed election.

The story first appeared in the Iranian regime’s own newspaper, the Iran Daily, but Ali Kafashin, the head of the Iranian football federation, denied yesterday that the players had been punished. He said: “The reports in the foreign media are nothing but lies.”

One of the players, Mehdi Mahdavikia, 32, was captain of the Iran team and plays for the German club Eintracht-Frankfurt. Contacted via his club yesterday, he told The Times that did not want to speak about the events of the past few days.

Another, Vahid Hashemian, 32, plays for the German club VfL Bochum. He told The Times through a club spokesman that he did not wear a green wristband, had heard nothing from the Iranian football authorities, and because of his age was ready to stand down from international football anyway.

The two other players are Hossein Kaabi, 24, who briefly played for Leicester City in 2007, and Ali Karimi, 31, who has been dubbed “Asia’s Maradona”, once played for Bayern Munich, and was Asian Player of the Year in 2004. Both now play for clubs in Iran.

The Iranian state news agency reported that Karimi and Mahdavikia had both resigned from the national team to make way for younger players.

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