{"id":2825,"date":"2026-03-02T16:15:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T16:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tona.today\/?p=2825"},"modified":"2026-03-02T16:23:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T16:23:56","slug":"president-of-irans-soccer-federation-says-world-cup-participation-in-us-is-in-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tona.today\/?p=2825","title":{"rendered":"President of Iran\u2019s soccer federation says World Cup participation in US is in doubt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The president of Iran\u2019s soccer federation says he does not know if the national team can play World Cup matches in the United States following the surprise U.S. and Israeli bombardment of his country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhat is certain is that after this attack, we cannot be expected to look forward to the World Cup with hope,\u201d Mehdi Taj told sports portal Varzesh3 as Iran traded strikes with Israel as part of a widening war prompted by the bombardment.<\/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=\"Yemi Alade - Tomorrow (Official Music Video)\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/G4u2yMsPdG8?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>The U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran continued for a second day on Sunday after the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threw the future of the Islamic Republic into uncertainty and raised the risk of regional instability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Iran has been drawn in Group G at the World Cup and is scheduled to play in Los Angeles \u2013 where it faces New Zealand and Belgium on June 15 and 21, respectively \u2013 before it plays Egypt in Seattle on June 26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The United States is hosting the tournament with Canada and Mexico from June 11-July 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fans from Iran were already banned from entering the U.S. in the first iteration of the travel ban announced by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>FIFA did not immediately reply to an email from The Associated Press over the current situation regarding Iran\u2019s participation in the World Cup. <a href=\"https:\/\/japantoday.com\/category\/sports\/president-of-iran%E2%80%99s-soccer-federation-says-world-cup-participation-in-us-is-in-doubt\">(JapanToday)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The president of Iran\u2019s soccer federation says he does not know if the national team can play World Cup matches in the United States following the surprise U.S. and Israeli bombardment of his country. \u201cWhat is certain is that after this attack, we cannot be expected to look forward to the World Cup with hope,\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[419,434,236,433,52,275,57],"class_list":["post-2825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-2026-fifa-world-cup","tag-ayatollah-ali-khamenei","tag-canada","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-mexico","tag-united-states"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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