{"id":340587,"date":"2026-03-11T13:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T13:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/340587\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T13:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T13:30:09","slug":"donald-trump-says-iran-welcome-to-compete-at-world-cup-fifa-president-gianni-infantino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/340587\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump says Iran \u2018welcome\u2019 to compete at World Cup \u2013 Fifa president Gianni Infantino"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"US President Donald Trump with Fifa president Gianni Infantino\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ea641a2c-2937-4d1c-84d3-a934a37055c9.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">US President Donald Trump with Fifa president Gianni Infantino<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">United States president Donald Trump has assured Fifa that Iran are &#8220;welcome\u201d to compete at this summer&#8217;s World Cup, according to Gianni Infantino.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The team\u2019s participation at the finals has been cast into doubt after the US and Israel launched air strikes on Iran on February 28.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The conflict has now drawn in other Middle East nations, with Iran retaliating by striking US military bases in the region.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Trump said earlier this month he \u201creally didn&#8217;t care\u201d if Iran played at the World Cup, but Fifa president Infantino insists Trump is supportive of the team being involved after a meeting between the two men.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cThis evening, I met with the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump to discuss the status of preparations for the upcoming Fifa World Cup, and the growing excitement as we are set to kick off in just 93 days,\u201d Infantino wrote on Instagram.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cWe also spoke about the current situation in Iran, and the fact that the Iranian team has qualified to participate in the Fifa World Cup 2026. During the discussions, President Trump reiterated that the Iranian team is, of course, welcome to compete in the tournament in the United States.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cWe all need an event like the Fifa World Cup to bring people together now more than ever, and I sincerely thank the President of the United States for his support, as it shows once again that Football Unites the World.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Iran are due to play all three of their group games in the US, and could even face the co-hosts in the round of 32 if both teams finish second in their respective groups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump with Fifa president Gianni Infantino United States president Donald Trump has assured Fifa that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[969,2956,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-340587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-donald-trump","tag-fifa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}