{"id":360045,"date":"2026-06-14T04:33:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T04:33:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/360045\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T04:33:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T04:33:36","slug":"15-iranian-soccer-federation-members-denied-us-visas-ahead-of-teams-world-cup-opener-in-los-angeles-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/360045\/","title":{"rendered":"15 Iranian soccer federation members denied US visas ahead of team’s World Cup opener in Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran’s World Cup campaign is set to begin Monday in Inglewood against New Zealand, but visa denials affecting members of the country’s soccer federation have become a central issue surrounding the team’s arrival in the United States.<\/p>\n

According to officials, 15 Iranian soccer federation members were denied U.S. visas ahead of the tournament.<\/p>\n

Players and coaching staff were not impacted by the visa denials.<\/p>\n

\"Iran's<\/a><\/p>\n

Iran’s Alireza Jahanbakhsh arrives with his teammates for the World Cup soccer tournament in Tijuana, Mexico (left image) while fans wave (right image). Sunday, June 7, 2026<\/p>\n

The U.S. State Department cited security concerns, alleging abuse of the visa system to “sneak terrorists in the United States under false pretenses.” No further details about those allegations have been released.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Marco Rubio had indicated that the Trump administration had “no problem” with providing visas to Iran’s team during his testimony on Capitol Hill earlier this month- but he said the administration would not allow the regime to use the event to bring in IRGC-affiliates.<\/p>\n

“What we’re not going to allow is for them to embed in their delegation a bunch of people that we know have nothing to do with athletics and have ties to the IRGC or things of that nature, so we were going to watch that very closely,” he said.<\/p>\n

Iran is the only World Cup team whose federation has faced such a large number of denied entries, adding complications to its tournament preparations. As a result of the visa issues, the team made last-minute changes, moving its training base from Arizona to Tijuana.<\/p>\n

Despite those challenges, Iran is scheduled to open play Monday at the SoFi Stadium (renamed Los Angeles Stadium by FIFA) against New Zealand. The match, set for 6 p.m., is one of two games Iran will play in the Los Angeles area.<\/p>\n

Southern California is home to the largest Iranian population outside Iran. Hundreds of thousands of people of Iranian descent live in the region, making the team’s presence a significant cultural moment for many supporters.<\/p>\n

However, excitement around the match is tempered by what’s become a very complicated situation. Fans are grappling with mixed emotions tied to the ongoing war in Iran, which has added a layer of complexity to what might otherwise be a celebratory occasion.<\/p>\n

For the players and coaching staff, the focus remains on competition. Iran enters the match as the favored team against New Zealand.<\/p>\n

As for the war, it appears an agreement to end it is near.<\/p>\n

Pakistan’s prime minister said Friday that mediators are working with both sides in the conflict to finalize an agreement, adding that “peace has never been this close.”<\/p>\n

ABC News contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran’s World Cup campaign is set to begin Monday in Inglewood against New Zealand, but visa denials affecting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[145893,48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-360045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-145893","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}