{"id":627473,"date":"2026-04-24T08:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T08:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/627473\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T08:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T08:15:08","slug":"us-says-iran-players-welcome-at-2026-world-cup-amid-call-for-italy-to-take-their-place-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/627473\/","title":{"rendered":"US says Iran players welcome at 2026 World Cup amid call for Italy to take their place | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran\u2019s footballers will be welcome at this year\u2019s World Cup<\/a>, secretary of state Marco Rubio said Thursday, distancing the United States government from a proposal that Italy could take their place in the tournament.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Rubio denied that the government had asked the Iranian team not to come to the World Cup \u2013 but warned the US may yet bar entry to members of the Iranian delegation it judged to have ties to Tehran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is regarded as a terrorist organisation by Washington and several other governments.<\/p>\n

No one \u201cfrom the US has told them they can\u2019t come,\u201d Rubio said of Iran\u2019s World Cup participation. \u201cThe problem with Iran, it would be not their athletes, it would be some of the other people [they] would want to bring with them, some of whom have ties to the IRGC,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cWe may not be able to let them in, but not the athletes themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubio was responding to a reported proposal from Italy-born US special envoy Paolo Zampolli<\/a>, who told the Financial Times he had floated the idea of Italy taking Iran\u2019s World Cup place to US president Donald Trump and football\u2019s world governing body Fifa. The proposal was dismissed out of hand by the Italian government<\/a> and sports officials earlier on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Rubio said the proposal did not reflect the US government\u2019s position. \u201cI don\u2019t know where that\u2019s coming from, other than speculation that Iran may decide not to come, and Italy<\/a> would fill their spot,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cBut that\u2019s if they decide not to come on their own, it\u2019s because they decided not to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zampolli told the FT on Wednesday it would be a \u201cdream\u201d to see Italy at the finals in the United States, Mexico and Canada despite the fact they lost in a qualification playoff last month. \u2013 However, Italy\u2019s sports minister Andrea Abodi said on Thursday that a reinstatement of Italy \u201cfirst, is not possible; second, is not appropriate, you qualify on the pitch\u201d.<\/p>\n

That view was echoed by the president of Italy\u2019s Olympic committee, Luciano Buonfiglio. \u201cI would feel offended. You have to earn your place in the World Cup,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Iranian embassy to Rome responded saying that the suggestion showed US \u201cmoral bankruptcy\u201d and that Italy did not need \u201cpolitical privileges\u201d to demonstrate its football greatness.<\/p>\n

Italy have won the World Cup four times, but it missed out on the tournament for a third successive time after losing a penalty shootout to Bosnia and Herzegovina in their qualifying playoff final.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s participation at the World Cup has been thrown into doubt<\/a> by the war with the US and Israel that broke out on 28 February. The Iranian football federation had said in April it was \u201cnegotiating\u201d with Fifa<\/a> to relocate the country\u2019s World Cup matches from the United States to Mexico.<\/p>\n

But Fifa president Gianni Infantino told AFP last month that Iran will be at the World Cup<\/a> and that they will play \u201cwhere they are supposed to be, according to the draw\u201d. The Fifa chief reiterated that stance in Washington last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s footballers will be welcome at this year\u2019s World Cup, secretary of state Marco Rubio said Thursday, distancing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-627473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}