{"id":1936,"date":"2025-12-03T20:35:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T20:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tona.today\/?p=1936"},"modified":"2025-12-03T20:35:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T20:35:07","slug":"iran-to-boycott-2026-world-cup-draw-over-us-visa-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tona.today\/?p=1936","title":{"rendered":"Iran to boycott 2026 World Cup draw over US visa row"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Iran is to boycott next week\u2019s World Cup finals draw in Washington because the United States refused to grant visas to several members of the delegation, the Iranian football federation announced on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe have informed FIFA that the decisions taken have nothing to do with sports and the members of the Iranian delegation will not participate in the World Cup draw,\u201d the federation\u2019s spokesperson told state television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Asake - Organise (Official Video)\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_u4_iWCvZ5c?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Iranian sports website Varzesh 3 had claimed on Tuesday that the United States had declined to issue visas to several members of the delegation, including the president of the federation, Mehdi Taj.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Thursday, Taj had denounced the decision as being a political one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe have told the head of FIFA mister (Gianni) Infantino, that it is purely a political position and that FIFA must tell them (US) to desist from this behaviour,\u201d added Taj.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Varzesh 3, four members of the delegation, including Amir Ghalenoei, the coach, had been granted visas for the draw on December 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Iran qualified for the sport\u2019s quadrennial showpiece in March, guaranteeing them a fourth successive appearance and seventh in all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They have yet to progress to the knockout stages, but there was unconfined joy when in the 1998 finals in France, Iran beat the USA 2-1 in their group match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The USA avenged that by beating Iran 1-0 in the 2022 edition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The United States \u2014 which is co-hosting the World Cup with Canada and Mexico \u2014 and Iran have been at loggerheads for over four decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They had, though, been holding high-level nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington that had begun in April, during which the two sides were at odds over Iran\u2019s right to enrich uranium \u2014 which Tehran defends as \u201cinalienable\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, they ended when, in mid-June, Israel launched an unprecedented bombing campaign against Iran, triggering a 12-day war that the United States briefly joined with strikes on key Iranian nuclear facilities. <a href=\"https:\/\/punchng.com\/iran-to-boycott-2026-world-cup-draw-over-us-visa-row\/?utm_source=auto-read-also&amp;utm_medium=web#google_vignette\">(Punch)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Iran is to boycott next week\u2019s World Cup finals draw in Washington because the United States refused to grant visas to several members of the delegation, the Iranian football federation announced on Friday. \u201cWe have informed FIFA that the decisions taken have nothing to do with sports and the members of the Iranian delegation will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1407,326,1585,433,57,2123],"class_list":["post-1936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-2026-world-cup","tag-fifa","tag-gianni-infantino","tag-iran","tag-united-states","tag-visa"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - 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