South Azerbaijan’s most prominent football team,  the Tractor’ players in a protest against  official ban on Azerbaijani Turkic language in Iran  declined  to take questions from media  directed to them in Farsi . Mr. Khatibi,  Tractor’s head coach whose team  has just secured a crashing 3-1 victory over  Tehran’s Persepolis  Football Team  at Tehran’s  Azadi Stadium  told reporters that  an Azerbaijani journalist  was interviewing  the Tractor players in our mother tong,  Turkish at the change room. However,  the officials of  Tehran’s Azadi Stadium  expelled the Azerbaijani  journalist from the change room merely for speaking  in the mother language of over 30 million Turks in Iran. Therefore, in protest against this racist action, the Tractor football team made a collective decision to  refuse  speaking  in Farsi. They did not answer any questions from the media asked in Farsi.

Thousands of Azerbaijani fans once again chanted  anti-racist slogans  and demonstrated banners demanding equal rights for South Azerbaijanis.