Iran’s World Cup team left Turkey for Mexico on Saturday. Their departure comes amid a heated diplomatic issue between Tehran and Washington. The US has refused to grant visas to some members of the team’s support staff.
This dispute started just days before the 2026 World Cup kicks off. The tournament will be hosted by the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
The Iranian team took off around 6:10 PM (1510 GMT) for Tijuana in northwest Mexico. They will stay there for the tournament, and the flight is expected to take about 20 hours, according to Iranian state TV.
Iran will play their three group games on US soil. This marks the first World Cup where a host nation has welcomed a team from a country it is at war with.
The team moved their base to Tijuana from Tucson, Arizona, in late May.
Before leaving for Mexico, the team spent nearly three weeks training in Antalya. During their time in Turkey, they applied for visas to travel to Mexico, Canada, and the US.
Before their departure, players received their US visas. Tom Barrack, the US envoy to Turkey, shared the news on X late Friday.
But Iran’s embassy in Turkey reacted strongly. They claimed that support staff were denied visas, affecting 15 administrative and management members, according to an Iranian diplomat and state TV.
“You have now escalated the deliberate and discriminatory treatment against Iran’s national football team to its highest level,” the embassy wrote on X on Saturday. They called on FIFA to hold the US accountable for breaking its rules.
Adding to the tensions, Iran’s ambassador to Mexico said Saturday that the squad was informed they must enter and leave US soil on the same day of their matches.
“We can enter in the morning and we must leave the same day,” Iran’s envoy Abolfazl Pasandideh told reporters.
This went against what the team’s spokesman, Amir Mahdi Alavi, told state TV earlier. He said, “The visas issued for the national team are multiple-entry visas. 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.”
Iran’s Football Federation has criticized the decision. Their chief, Mehdi Taj, was reportedly among those denied a visa. They called it “political interference in sport in its worst form.”
In response, a US administration official confirmed that “the visas necessary for Iran to compete in the World Cup, including for athletes and necessary support staff, have been issued.”
The official did not directly address the issue of those whose visas were refused. They added, “We will not allow the Iranian team to abuse this system to sneak terrorists into the United States under false pretenses.”
In April, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that any issue would not be with the Iranian players but “some of the other people (they) would want to bring with them.” This was a reference to ties to the Revolutionary Guards, a group on the US terror blacklist.
Taj himself is a former Guards member, according to Iranian media in the diaspora.
The conflict in the Middle East began when the US and Israel started bombing Iran on February 28. A ceasefire on April 8 largely stopped the fighting, but tensions have risen with recent exchanges of fire.
Iran, known as Team Melli, is in Group G. They will play New Zealand and Belgium in Los Angeles on June 15 and 21, followed by a game against Egypt in Seattle on June 26.
Before they left, Iran defeated Mali 2-0 in a friendly in Antalya. They also won against Gambia in an earlier warmup.
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