Fifa has invited the Iranian football federation to its Zurich headquarters for talks over the country\u2019s participation at this year\u2019s World Cup, a source told AFP.<\/p>\n
PARIS: FIFA has invited the Iranian football federation (FFIRI) to its headquarters for talks over the country\u2019s participation at this year\u2019s World Cup, a source told AFP on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s presence at the tournament, held in the United States, Canada and Mexico between June 11 and July 19, has been shrouded in uncertainty since the eruption of war in the Middle East in February following strikes by the United States and Israel.<\/p>\n
The source said FIFA had asked the FFIRI to visit its Zurich base \u201cby May 20 to prepare for the World Cup\u201d.<\/p>\n
Last week, FIFA president Gianni Infantino reiterated Iran will play their World Cup games in the United States as scheduled.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me start by the outset, confirming straightaway that of course Iran will be participating at the FIFA World Cup 2026,\u201d Infantino said as he addressed delegates at the FIFA Congress in Vancouver.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd of course, Iran will play (in) the United States of America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s delegation was the only absentee from the 211-member congress after a clash with Canadian border officials.<\/p>\n
Iranian media said FFIRI president Mehdi Taj \u2014 a former member of Tehran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) \u2014 and two colleagues flew home after being \u201cinsulted\u201d by Canadian immigration officers.<\/p>\n
Canada, which designated the IRGC a terrorist organisation in 2024, said individuals linked to the force were \u201cinadmissible\u201d.<\/p>\n
On his return home, Taj told local media he wanted a meeting with FIFA to discuss a variety of subjects.<\/p>\n
Iran, who are due to be based in Tucson, Arizona, during the World Cup, face New Zealand, Belgium and Egypt in Group G.<\/p>\n
The Iranians open their World Cup campaign against New Zealand in Los Angeles on June 15.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifa has invited the Iranian football federation to its Zurich headquarters for talks over the country\u2019s participation at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10732,3188,1970,13703,51],"class_list":{"0":"post-60437","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-zurich","8":"tag-fifa","9":"tag-iran","10":"tag-talks","11":"tag-world-cup","12":"tag-zurich"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116522794704244967","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}