The war launched against Iran by the United States and Israel in late February has made the journey to the World Cup a tumultuous one for Iran.
Never before has a World Cup host – the US is sharing responsibilities with Mexico and Canada – been at war with a nation that has qualified.
Conflicting signals by US President Donald Trump clouded their participation. In one social media post he said the team was “welcome” but suggested they stay away for “their own life and safety”.
A training camp that had been fixed in Tucson, Arizona, was nixed at the last minute; Iran set up instead in Tijuana, just over the Mexican border.
US officials have granted visas to players, but more than a dozen team staff have been denied entry for the three group-stage matches taking place on American soil.
Two of those games are set to take place in Los Angeles – the US city with the largest ethnic Iranian population anywhere outside Iran, sometimes nicknamed “Tehrangeles”.
But history is complicated, and a significant chunk of that population is fiercely opposed to the regime of the Islamic Republic, which overthrew the Shah in 1979.
That opposition was renewed in January when Tehran violently suppressed a popular uprising, leaving perhaps thousands of people dead.
Iranian-Americans in the city flooded the streets, many carrying the Lion and Sun flag, in support of those demonstrating in Iran.
Now some of those same people are planning to take advantage of the global attention generated by the World Cup to press their point and show solidarity with Iranians who they say are oppressed by the regime.
Organiser Sid Mohasseb, 65, says he cannot “sleep because of the atrocities that they’re facing”.
The coalition he belongs to is chartering buses to bring protesters from across California for Monday’s game and is hoping to have “40- to 50,000 people” around the stadium, he said.
In a country that prides itself on the right to free expression, that’s fine.
The problem for the Iranian team – and perhaps for Fifa – is what happens if they have tickets and want to demonstrate inside SoFi stadium?
Assal Pahlevan, centre, raises the historical Iranian Lion and Sun flag during a rally in the Westwood neighbourhood of Los Angeles earlier this year. Photo / Getty Images
World football’s governing body has rules that prohibit accessories of a “political nature” inside stadiums.
If this rule is not followed, “the team official will certainly have a duty to stop the match,” Iranian Sports Minister Ahmad Donyamali warned this week.
‘Traitors’
Enforcement of the code is not uniform, and there are ways around it.
Several ticket-holding protesters told AFP they had printed the old Iranian flag on T-shirts, which they could cover with other clothing before stripping off inside the stadium.
“What can Fifa really do about this?” said Iman Foroutan, an activist from Orange County, south of Los Angeles.
“Are they going to stop the game and kick everybody out? I’m not sure that this would be very practical.”
The 68-year-old Iranian-American views “Team Melli” as a propaganda tool for the Islamic Republic.
“A lot of these soccer players are traitors, they salute murderers, they sing the regime’s national anthem,” he said.
The national anthem could easily be a flashpoint. It was booed by some fans during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, just months after a bloody crackdown on protests sparked by the death of young Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested over a supposedly improperly worn headscarf.
“The atmosphere is not going to be good” this year either, predicts Ali Eslami, an Iranian-American who lives in Tijuana.
“Every Iranian knows it, the team knows it too.”
“I feel bad for the players because they shouldn’t be really playing in that kind of atmosphere,” the 70-year-old former tennis coach said.
“If I were in that situation, honestly, I couldn’t function.”
-AFP