Iranian Judoka Saeid Mollaei, who claimed authorities in Tehran forced him to engineer his elimination in a tournament last week in order to avoid playing against Israeli Judoka Sagi Muki, may arrive in Israel in 2020.
Israel Hayom has learned that the Israel Judo Association invited Mollaei to take part in the Tel Aviv Grand Prix 2019 in January.
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After Mollaei was eliminated from the World Judo Championships last week, Muki ended up winning the gold medal and made Israeli sports history.
Mollaei then announced that he would seek asylum in Germany and even praised Muki online and congratulated him on his win, to the chagrin of the Iranian regime.
International Judo Federation president Marius Vizer wants the Iranian asylum-seeker to attend the Israeli-hosted competition in January and has said he would punish Iranian authorities for pressuring Mollaei to lose a match last week so that he would get eliminated.
If Mollaei accepts the invitation, he would still have to jump through many hoops before he would be able to compete in Tel Aviv, but authorities in Israel said they were optimistic.
