{"id":478880,"date":"2026-06-06T05:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T05:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/478880\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T05:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T05:46:08","slug":"irans-football-team-granted-us-visas-ahead-of-the-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/478880\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran’s football team granted US visas ahead of the World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran’s World \u200bCup<\/a> football team players have been granted visas to enter the US just 10 days before their first match in Los Angeles, amid the conflict between the two countries.<\/p>\n

Iran’s ambassador to Mexico, Abolfazl Pasandideh, said late on Thursday \u2060the squad had still not received their US visas but these were granted overnight, a White House official \u200btold Reuters on Friday.<\/p>\n

A spokesman \u2060for Iran’s World Cup federation could \u200cnot immediately be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

In a post on X, the US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, said he was proud of the US embassy in Ankara, which processed the visas.<\/p>\n

\u201cSports transcends borders, and we look forward to welcoming competitors and fans from around the world,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Tehran negotiated a last-minute move<\/a> of the team’s base from Arizona to Tijuana in Mexico \u200bdue to the visa issues and a growing feeling in Iran<\/a> that the squad\u2019s presence in the United States should be kept to a minimum.<\/p>\n

They are scheduled to land in Tijuana early on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Iran are due to play their first Group G match on June 15 against New Zealand in Los Angeles, where they will also face Belgium before taking on Egypt in Seattle.<\/p>\n

The Iran war has turned the World Cup \u2013 the biggest global sporting event \u2013 into a geopolitical contest, with both sides appearing to use the tournament for political posturing.<\/p>\n

It is the first World Cup, since its inception in 1930, in which a host nation is set to receive a country it is at war with.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Marco Rubio <\/a>said on \u200cTuesday the US would not allow Iran \u2060to include in its World Cup delegation individuals \u200blinked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, a powerful branch of the Iranian armed \u200bforces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran’s World \u200bCup football team players have been granted visas to enter the US just 10 days before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,2865,789,40,38,41,39,48841,101640],"class_list":["post-478880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-standard","tag-story","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-bureau","tag-world-cup-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}