{"id":503805,"date":"2026-06-21T10:29:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T10:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/503805\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T10:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T10:29:13","slug":"us-refuses-to-ease-iran-world-cup-travel-restrictions-for-belgium-match-world-cup-2026-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/503805\/","title":{"rendered":"US refuses to ease Iran World Cup travel restrictions for Belgium match | World Cup 2026 News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"World<\/a><\/p>\n

Andrew Giuliani says Iran\u2019s players will not be allowed to stay longer for their group matches in the US.<\/p>\n

The United States will not ease the travel restrictions on the Iranian team for their World Cup matches in Los Angeles and Seattle despite the \u2060team saying they would lodge a complaint with FIFA<\/a>, the cohost nation\u2019s top tournament official has confirmed.<\/p>\n

The US will continue to assess the Iran squad\u2019s travel arrangements, but for now the original plan remains in place, Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House Task Force for the tournament, told the Reuters news agency on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

Iran are unhappy at restrictions that mean they can only travel to venues within 24 hours of their \u2060fixtures and must depart back to their training base in Tijuana, Mexico, directly after each game, with coach Amir Ghalenoei suggesting his side were \u201cthe most oppressed team in the whole World Cup\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Iranian delegation left the US hours after the full-time whistle<\/a> at their first World Cup match against New Zealand last week.<\/p>\n

The Group G match ended at about 8pm local time (03:00 GMT), and Iran returned to their base camp in Mexico within a few hours, prompting criticism of the US handling of their visas as the team did not get a day to recover at their hotel.<\/p>\n

Ghalenoei said the team had expected to spend the night in California to maximise the normal recovery process after their opening game.<\/p>\n

The US faced further pushback as\u00a0Iran winger Mehdi Torabi\u2019s entry visa expired after the first game. Team officials confirmed Tuesday afternoon that they had secured him a new, multiple-entry visa allowing him to travel into the US for future matches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis issue has been resolved,\u201d the US Department of State said.<\/p>\n

The same travel protocol will be in place for Iran\u2019s fixture against Belgium on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Iranian team was due to arrive in Los Angeles on Saturday evening, about 24 hours before kickoff time for their match.<\/p>\n

\"IranIran\u2019s player Alireza Jahanbakhsh touches his forehead to the Quran as he departs from Tijuana, Mexico, on Saturday [Gabriela Aoun Angueira\/AP Photo]\u2018Situation is dynamic\u2019<\/p>\n

Giuliani, however, says the situation is fluid and they will discuss what measures will be in place for Iran\u2019s third game against Egypt in Seattle on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u200csituation is dynamic,\u201d Giuliani said in Houston. \u201cWe have a plan right now. Tomorrow afternoon [after the match against Belgium], they will take the 27-minute flight back to Tijuana.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will see how it goes for match two, and then there will be discussions the day after in terms of what it looks like for match three in Seattle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giuliani defended the measures in place and said the pre-tournament change in training bases for the side from Tucson to Tijuana had shortened Iran\u2019s travel time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shift from Tucson to Tijuana, I think, was good for everybody involved. Certainly it reduces their travel time to Los \u2060Angeles too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir flight is an hour shorter than it would be from Tucson. And we\u2019re \u2060happy with the way that things went for match one in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would just point to the fact that all players have received visas. All the coaches have received visas. There are some team officials that have not received visas, and that\u2019s because we\u2019ve seen some derogatory information on them, and this \u2060is the balance that we talk about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giuliani said the goal has always been to protect the interests of the US and the international visitors at the World Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want \u2060to make sure we have this incredible soccer tournament, where people are welcome \u2060and enjoy the World Cup, while also making sure that we are not just protecting American citizens, but we\u2019re also protecting all those international visitors that are coming here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He revealed that no threats to the tournament had been identified, but that officials remain vigilant.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I can tell you is our intelligence community has \u200ctripled down on this since the beginning of this year,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re in discussions every hour on it. But there have been no credible threats at this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giuliani has been pleased with the opening 10 days of the World Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings are going as planned,\u201d \u200che \u200csaid. \u201cIt\u2019s been fantastic to see the great play on the pitch, that seems to be the majority of the conversation, which has been fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Giuliani says Iran\u2019s players will not be allowed to stay longer for their group matches in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4118,42,87,47,43,2224,40,38,41,39,1032,1156,162198,101640],"class_list":["post-503805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-football","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-sport","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada","tag-us-israel-war-on-iran","tag-world-cup-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503805","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=503805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}