The dispute erupted just days before Thursday’s kickoff of the 2026 World Cup, which is being jointly hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada.
After departing from their training camp in Turkey a day earlier, the Iran team landed early on Sunday in the Mexican border city of Tijuana.
The team will be based in the city throughout the tournament, despite playing their entire group stage in the United States.
When they do play in the US, it will be the first World Cup to see a host nation receive the team of a country it is at war with.
Iran’s team spent nearly three weeks at a training camp in Antalya, using their time in Turkey to apply for visas to travel to Mexico, Canada and the United States.
On the eve of their departure for Mexico, the players received their US visas, Washington’s envoy to Turkey Tom Barrack said on X late on Friday.
But Iran’s embassy to Turkey said support staff had been denied visas – 15 administrative and management staff are concerned, an Iranian diplomat and state TV said.
“You have now escalated the deliberate and discriminatory treatment against Iran’s national football team to its highest level,” the embassy wrote Saturday on X, calling for world football’s governing body Fifa “to hold the US accountable for violations of its rules”.
Adding to the tensions, Iran’s ambassador to Mexico said on Saturday the squad had been notified that, under their visa conditions, the team must enter and leave US soil on the same day as their matches.
“We can enter in the morning and we must leave the same day,” Iran’s envoy Abolfazl Pasandideh told reporters.
That appeared to contradict what the team’s spokesman Amir Mahdi Alavi told state TV earlier.
“The visas issued for the national team are multiple-entry visas, and the national team will arrive at the match venue one day before the first game and, for the following games, two days prior to each match,” Alavi said.
Fifa rules for World Cups stipulate that a team’s coach must give a news conference on the eve of the match at the venue where the game will be played. (AFP)
