{"id":5069,"date":"2026-06-07T16:10:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T13:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/washington-screens-iranian-delegation-for-2026-world-cup\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T16:10:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T13:10:17","slug":"washington-screens-iranian-delegation-for-2026-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/washington-screens-iranian-delegation-for-2026-world-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Screens Iranian Delegation for 2026 World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to <em>Valeurs Actuelles<\/em>, the visas were issued on the night of June 5th to players, coaches, trainers, and part of the support staff. The Iranian soccer federation, which had been sounding alarms for weeks over the lack of documentation, can finally breathe easier\u2014though the situation remains far from resolved.<\/p>\n<p>Approximately fifteen members of the delegation, including administrative and support personnel, are still awaiting approval from U.S. authorities, Iranian state television reports. More significantly, Secretary of State <strong>Marco Rubio<\/strong> has drawn a hard line: Washington will not welcome anyone affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, the armed enforcement wing of the Islamic regime.<\/p>\n<p>Federation president <strong>Mehdi Taj<\/strong> has already felt the consequences of this policy. His visa for Canada was revoked due to his past ties to the Pasdaran, as the Revolutionary Guards are known in Persian.<\/p>\n<p>The logistical challenges facing Iran are considerable. With no diplomatic relations between Tehran and Washington since 1980, the Iranian team will establish its base camp in Tijuana on the Mexican side of the border, then cross into the United States for its group stage matches. Iran faces New Zealand on June 15th near Los Angeles, Belgium six days later, and Egypt in Seattle on June 26th.<\/p>\n<p>FIFA president <strong>Gianni Infantino<\/strong> has assured that the Iranian team will play its matches in the United States as scheduled. However, the exact composition of Iran&#8217;s delegation remains uncertain, and the Trump administration has made clear it intends to maintain full control over who enters the country.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:right\"><em>With information from <a href=\"https:\/\/valeursactuelles.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Valeurs Actuelles<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Iranian national soccer team received U.S. visas ten days before their World Cup opener, but Trump officials banned anyone linked to Iran&#8217;s Revolutionary Guard Corps from entering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[3132,96,356,298,209,5557],"nfg_topic":[135],"class_list":["post-5069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-2026-world-cup","tag-iran","tag-islamic-revolutionary-guard-corps","tag-marco-rubio","tag-united-states","tag-visa-restrictions","nfg_topic-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5069"},{"taxonomy":"nfg_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nfg_topic?post=5069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}