Telegraph - Iran's footballers have been threatened with punishment for posing for "selfies" with women fans who have flocked to see them play in Australia.
The team are playing in the Asian Cup finals, and their games have been attended by thousands of Australia's expatriate Iranian community.
Sport and in particular football has a large following in Iran. The sex segregation rules that prevent women attending men's games at home do not apply abroad.
Nor do Iran's dress codes for women, so that officials back home have been alarmed to see photographs appearing on social media of celebrity players posing with Iranian women dressed for the Australian summer.
They have now received a warning from the head of the Iranian Football Federation's disciplinary committee.
"Players are not allowed to pose for selfies with female fans," Ali Akbar Mohamedzade said. "They (the women) may later use these photos for political ransom against our country or sue the players for harassment.
"If the players refuse to act according to our clear instructions then we will be left with no option but to deal with them."
Images showing "inappropriately dressed" women have been censored out of media coverage of the tournament back home, leading one sports commentator, Adel Ferdosipour, on Iran's equivalent of Match of the Day to comment sardonically that the team only appeared to have one couple supporting it, who just happened to wear traditional dress.
The message was written in English.
There are 70,000 Iranians living in Australia, and thousands are following the team's progress in the tournament, which it has won three times in the past. It has already defeated Bahrain and Qatar.
The national coach, the Portuguese Carlos Queiroz, once an assistant to Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, has also been questioned about the behaviour of his team.
"In some of the selfies that our players have taken with the fans we can see they appear next to people whose appearance we regard as being against our moral principles," Mr Mohamedzade said.
"I have therefore had to contact the national coach and questioned him about this issue and he has explicitly denied having agreed to posting of such selfies on social networks."
Iran's national broadcasting organisation, the IRIB, has been criticised at home for censoring images of exiled dissidents among the crowd holding flags of imperial Iran, or banners protesting the Iranian regime's human rights records and its restrictive measures against women in sports.
Mr Queiroz has not commented, though at a press conference he complained that international sanctions restricted his ability to build a team and give it international experience.
"It's been very difficult," he said. "When we come to a competition like this, we have 80 million people dreaming about the team's expectations.
"Fair play is to give opportunities to these kids to play international matches. It's part of the FIFA spirit that politics should not interfere with the game. The players are victimised by the limitations of the sanctions."