The World Cup begins this week, but tensions between the U.S. and Iran will taint the image of the tournament. With the war between the two countries ongoing, the United States hit the Iranian national team with a number of sanctions, including denying entry to the team’s staff members. The host nation has made itself look awful in the eyes of the world (possibly out of fear of the Iranians doing well at the World Cup), but the sanctions might be necessary to prevent an international incident.
How US-Iran Tensions Have Complicated The World Cup
The denial of visas for the Iranian national team doesn’t paint the United States in a positive light. Host countries typically don’t deny visas for athletes or team staffers, but are more restrictive of fans and journalists entering the country. Despite this, Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022) created fan passes to make it easier for fans to travel, and to boost tourism. This is not the case for the U.S., as the country rejected using such a pass, and travel bans have even kept various countries’ national delegates from entering for the World Cup.
The Iranians had a long, arduous road to the 2026 World Cup. After the war between Iran and the United States broke out in late February, the former’s soccer league was shut down, and the national team had to leave the country to continue training for the tournament. There was a list of doubt whether the Middle Eastern country would even be competing at the World Cup, so just getting to this point is a small victory.
The Iranian national team initially planned to have their training camp in Arizona, but relocated to Tijuana, Mexico at the request of FIFA, presumably for safety. While everyone affiliated with the team made it to South America, 14 staffers were denied visas to enter the United States. Losing that many staff members undoubtedly hurts the Middle Eastern nation, and the controversy doesn’t end there.
Iran’s ticket allocations and travel arrangements for the World Cup have also been impacted by the conflict. With the war still raging, the United States forbids U.S.-based organizations from doing business with Iran residents, and that includes World Cup ticket sellers. FIFA is currently working on getting tickets to fans outside of the county, and there are tickets to be had with the Middle Eastern country being allocated 8% of stadium capacity. The team is also required to enter and leave the United States the same day they have a match, which is another logistical nightmare.
All of this is a spectacularly bad look for the United States, but the sanctions aren’t completely without merit. An official with knowledge of the denied visas stated that some of the denials were a result of Iranian officials applying for visas “under false pretenses”. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently said that the national team would be under close surveillance: “We have no problems with the athletes… or their support staff. But what we’re not going to allow is for them to embed in their delegation a bunch of people that we know have nothing to do with athletics, and have ties to the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) or things of that nature.”
There’s been a handful of terror-related incidents at the World Cup (the worst of which being the 2010 Uganda bombings), so the precautions are unfortunately necessary to prevent an international incident on U.S soil. There’s a chance that the host country and the Iranians could face each other if both teams finish second in group play, which will be one of the most tense matches ever at the World Cup for obvious reasons. Both teams are long shots to win the World Cup, but the United States stacking the deck against the Middle Eastern nation will surely have implications of hosting a tournament of this magnitude again.
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