{"id":545584,"date":"2026-04-23T00:37:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T00:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/545584\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T00:37:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T00:37:10","slug":"trump-envoy-seeks-to-replace-iran-with-italy-at-world-cup-says-report-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/545584\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump envoy seeks to replace Iran with Italy at World Cup, says report | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">An envoy to the US President Donald Trump has asked Fifa to replace Iran with Italy in the upcoming World Cup, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/1ff3a3fd-8d46-4eb4-9b15-0b9183925c6f\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Financial Times reported on Wednesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The plan is an effort to repair ties between Trump and Italy\u2019s prime minister <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/giorgia-meloni\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Giorgia Meloni<\/a> after the two fell out amid the American president\u2019s attacks against Pope Leo XIV over the Iran war, the FT reported, citing people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cI confirm I have suggested to Trump and [Fifa president Gianni] Infantino that Italy replace Iran at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/world-cup-football\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">World Cup<\/a>. I\u2019m an Italian native and it would be a dream to see the Azzurri at a US-hosted tournament. With four titles, they have the pedigree to justify inclusion,\u201d the US special envoy Paolo Zampolli told the FT.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The White House, Fifa, the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) and Iran\u2019s football federation (FFIRI) did not immediately respond to Reuters\u2019 requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Italy suffered a shock in March after the national team missed out on the World Cup for the third time in succession following a 4-1 penalty shootout defeat to Bosnia and Herzegovina in their qualifying playoff final.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The FT reported that Iran issued a statement on Wednesday saying it was prepared for the tournament and planned to participate. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Iran had said earlier in April it would only decide on the national team\u2019s participation in the World Cup once it received a response from Fifa over the relocation of their matches from the US to Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An envoy to the US President Donald Trump has asked Fifa to replace Iran with Italy in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-545584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}