“It is the right of the Iranian people to live a happy life,” the national team star said in a post-match interview in May in reference to the economic and social pressures Iranian people have been enduring and said authorities responsible for it must feel shame. The outspoken footballer has been in trouble with the authorities for quite some time. In 2019 he was summoned for explanations after he criticized Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif in an Instagram post for saying Iranians were “proud of being under pressure defending the people of Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria.” "You are not under pressure … It is the ordinary people who are under pressure," Ghafouri retorted to Zarif.
