IRAN CANNOT TAKE part in this summer\u2019s World Cup in North America under any circumstances, the country\u2019s sports minister is reported to have said.<\/p>\n
The United States and Israel launched air strikes on Iran on 28 February, sparking retaliatory attacks by Iran on Israel and other Middle East countries housing US military bases.<\/p>\n
Iran are due to play all three of their group games at this summer\u2019s finals in the US and could even face the co-hosts in the round of 32 if both finish second in their group.<\/p>\n
However, sports minister Ahmad Donyamali appeared to rule out the possibility of them taking part.<\/p>\n
He is reported to have told Iranian state television: \u201cConsidering that this corrupt regime \u2060has assassinated our leader, under no circumstances can we \u200bparticipate in the World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, was killed in the first day of attacks. He has since been succeeded by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur children are not safe and, \u200bfundamentally, such conditions for participation do not exist,\u201d Donyamali \u200bsaid.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the malicious actions they have carried out against Iran, they \u200chave \u2060forced two wars on us over eight or nine months and have killed and martyred thousands of our people. Therefore, we certainly cannot have such a presence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fifa has been contacted for comment regarding the minister\u2019s reported remarks.<\/p>\n
Fifa president Gianni Infantino had posted on Instagram overnight that US president Donald Trump had assured him Iran would be \u201cwelcome\u201d to compete.<\/p>\n
Trump said earlier this month he \u201creally didn\u2019t care\u201d if Iran played at the World Cup, but Infantino insisted Trump was supportive of the team being involved after a meeting between the two men.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis evening, I met with the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump to discuss the status of preparations for the upcoming Fifa World Cup, and the growing excitement as we are set to kick off in just 93 days,\u201d Infantino wrote on Instagram.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also spoke about the current situation in Iran, and the fact that the Iranian team has qualified to participate in the Fifa World Cup 2026. During the discussions, President Trump reiterated that the Iranian team is, of course, welcome to compete in the tournament in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all need an event like the Fifa World Cup to bring people together now more than ever, and I sincerely thank the President of the United States for his support, as it shows once again that Football Unites the World.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, six members of Iran\u2019s delegation have been granted humanitarian visas following the team\u2019s exit from the Women\u2019s Asian Cup football tournament in Australia.<\/p>\n
Five players had initially sought asylum and Australia\u2019s home affairs minister Tony Burke confirmed that a further player and one member of the team\u2019s support staff had since also indicated their desire to remain in the country.<\/p>\n
He said one of those two individuals later changed their mind and decided to return to Iran.<\/p>\n
There have been concerns over the team\u2019s safety on their return after the players chose not to sing the national anthem before their first match at the Asian Cup against South Korea.<\/p>\n
That drew criticism from supporters of the Iranian regime. The team did sing and salute in their second and third group games.<\/p>\n
Trump had called on Australia to grant asylum to the entire Iranian team and said the US would do so if Australia did not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IRAN CANNOT TAKE part in this summer\u2019s World Cup in North America under any circumstances, the country\u2019s sports…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,18929,17,4335,132,79591,35350],"class_list":["post-380819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-iran","tag-ireland","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-statement","tag-world-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116214768838644305","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}