{"id":480315,"date":"2026-06-07T05:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T05:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/480315\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T05:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T05:15:08","slug":"iran-says-staff-blocked-from-entering-us-after-players-given-world-cup-visas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/480315\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran says staff blocked from entering US after players given World Cup visas"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Iran Football Federation has accused the United States of \u201cvindictive behaviour\u201d regarding the refusal \u200bof \u200bvisas for managerial \u200band administrative members of its World \u2060Cup travelling party.<\/p>\n

IFF said 14 officials had been refused visas prior \u200bto upcoming matches in California and Seattle. The list includes the federation’s vice \u2060president Mehdi Mohammad Nabi and secretary-general Hedayat Mombeini.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t immediately known whether federation president Mehdi Taj was issued a visa. Tensions have been high between the \u2060United States and Iran<\/a> since the war in Iran broke out in \u200bFebruary.<\/p>\n

The Iran squad has been preparing for the World Cup in Antalya, Turkey, and was set to fly to Mexico on Saturday. The players received visas<\/a> from the Mexico Embassy in Antalya.<\/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

Tensions led to Iran \u200cmoving their training camp to Tijuana, Mexico. The \u200bcity is just across the US border from San Diego.<\/p>\n

According to the IFF, denying support staff visas has \u201ceffectively denied the Iranian national team the opportunity for a level playing field and a competition free from discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this week that the Iranian travelling party would be watched closely for people with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary \u200bGuard Corps.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have no problem with the athletes, \u200cas we stated earlier, \u2060or their support staff,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cBut what \u200bwe’re not going to allow is for them to \u200bembed \u200cin their delegation a bunch of people that we know have nothing to do \u2060with athletics and have ties to the IRGC or things of \u2060that nature.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we were going to watch that very closely, and we’ll continue to watch that very closely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran play World Cup<\/a> games against New Zealand on June 15 and Belgium on June 21 in Inglewood. \u200bThe team finishes the group five days later in Seattle against Egypt.<\/p>\n

The United States and Iran could face each other on July 3 in Arlington, Texas, if the two teams both finish second in their respective groups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Iran Football Federation has accused the United States of \u201cvindictive behaviour\u201d regarding the refusal \u200bof \u200bvisas for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[19712,42,87,43,114014,2865,789,40,38,41,39,101640],"class_list":["post-480315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-fifa","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-news","tag-sport-team","tag-standard","tag-story","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-world-cup-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480315","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=480315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}