Santiago Sanchez Cogedor’s mother said the Spanish Foreign Ministry confirmed her son was being detained in Iran and was in good health.
A Spanish football fan started walking to Qatar to watch World Cup was arrested in Iran, his mother said after he dropped contact for several weeks.
Santiago Sanchez Cogedor leaves his hometown near Madrid in January, hoping to do epic journey during the contest period starting on 20 November.
But his family hasn’t heard from him for almost a month.
“The [Spanish] The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that he is being detained in Iran and that his health is very good,” Cecelia Cogedor told Spanish TV channel Trece late on Thursday.
“He has nothing to do with politics. He doesn’t belong to any political party,” his father, Santiago Sanchez, said in an interview.
“He does not propagate nor fight against any situation. The only thing that touched him was to support Real Madrid,” said his father.
Spain’s ambassador to Iran is asking Iranian authorities to visit Sanchez Cegedor, his mother said, without saying what charges he has been charged with or where he is being held.
There has been no official comment from Iranian authorities yet.
Sanchez Cogedor documented his journey on Instagram and in his last post on October 1, he said he was coming to Iran from a northern Iraqi village.
He then told his parents by voice message that he was going to Tehran before heading to the port of Bandar Abbas to take a boat to Qatar.
“If you don’t set a date for your dreams, you won’t make them come true,” Sanchez Cogedor said in one of his writings documenting his journey. “You have to say on this day I go and on this day I leave.”
Iran has been six weeks of protests and a deadly crackdown by security forces following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in custody.
She was arrested by the ethics police for allegedly violating Iran’s dress code for women.
Tehran has accused the United States and other Western countries of being behind the protests.
Last month, Iranian authorities announced the arrest nine foreigners from Poland, Italy and France, believed to be involved in the protest movement.
