Iran’s treatment at World Cup ‘a dark point’ for football, says official

TIJUANA: Iran’s treatment at the World Cup in North America is a “dark point” in the history of the competition, a leading Iranian football official said Friday.

Hedayat Mombeyni, the secretary general of the Iranian football federation, was speaking to reporters the day after his organisation said it would lodge a complaint with Fifa, claiming the team was being subjected to travel restrictions that were jeopardising its performance.

“This is a major international tournament. This sort of breaking of our rules and our agreements, in my opinion, calls football itself into question,” Mombeyni told reporters at the team’s training base in Tijuana, Mexico.

“I believe this will mark a dark point in the World Cup’s recent history,” Mombeyni added.

Iran wanted to fly to the United States two days before their next match, against Belgium in Los Angeles on Sunday, because the match kicks off at midday local time.

Iran’s Belgian opponents were flying to California on Friday, two days before the game.

But the Iranian federation said its request to follow suit was turned down.

The US administration, which has just signed an interim deal to end its conflict with Iran, has pushed back against the Iranian claims.

Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House Fifa Task Force, said Iran had been informed in advance that they would only be allowed to enter the United States on the day before its games.

“The team will be allowed to come in, match day minus one, so the day before the match,” Giuliani told CBS News on Monday.

Fifa’s rules for World Cups say teams should travel from their bases to the match venue on the day before a game, but can travel two days before “in exceptional cases”.

Mombeyni hit out at the US organisers.

“Rules must be followed. Seems to me that (Giuliani) should have studied the rules much sooner. And people who are not capable of carrying out Fifa’s rules should not be hosting, and Fifa should not select them to be hosts,” he said.

“In my opinion, he should have studied the rules sooner, checked with people from Team Melli of Iran, and he shouldn’t have created these problems.”

The 2026 World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, is the first in history in which a host nation must host on its soil the team of a nation it is at war with.