told the Financial Times, external<\/a>: “I confirm I have suggested to Trump and Infantino that Italy replace Iran at the World Cup. <\/p>\n“I’m 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.”<\/p>\n
Fifa did not comment officially on Zampolli’s suggestion but highlighted a statement made by Fifa president Gianni Infantino last week where he said: “The Iranian team is coming, for sure.”<\/p>\n
The FT reported Zampolli’s plan was suggested to smooth things over between the US and Italy after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni criticised Trump over his comments towards Pope Leo XIV.<\/p>\n
Four-time champions Italy have failed to qualify for their third successive World Cup following a qualification play-off defeat by Bosnia and Herzegovina last month.<\/p>\n
Iran are due to face New Zealand and Belgium in Los Angeles on 15 and 21 June respectively, and Egypt in Seattle on 26 June.<\/p>\n
The tournament, which begins on 11 June, is being hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n
Under Fifa rules, the world governing body has “sole discretion” on what happens if a team withdraws or is excluded from the competition.<\/p>\n
Article six of its World Cup regulations also says: “Fifa may decide to replace the Participating Member Association in question with another association.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifa has no plans to replace Iran with Italy at this summer’s World Cup according to sources, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-546287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546287","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=546287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}