Iranian soccer player banned for brothel arrest

TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) - An Iranian appeals court has confirmed a five-year ban on an international soccer player convicted of off-the-pitch antics in a brothel, a court official told AFP on Tuesday.

However, the Tehran appeals court spared 22-year-old Mojahed Khaziravi the punishment of 99 lashes handed down by a court after his arrest in June on charges of "immoral contacts with a prostitution network". Aside from booting him off the national team for five years, the striker was also handed a three-year ban from playing for Tehran club Esteqlal.

Khaziravi was arrested along with seven other people over the brothel adventure. The female head of the vice gang connected with the affair also had her sentence of 10 years in jail and hefty fine confirmed by the appeals court, the judicial source said.

Other members of the gang were sentenced to jail, lashes and fines.

Prostitution has been outlawed here since the 1979 Islamic revolution, although the economic woes of recent years have driven more and more young women to resort to selling their bodies.