TEHRAN
\nIran\u2019s soccer federation was absent from a meeting \u200cof soccer leaders in Vancouver on Tuesday, leaving the country\u2019s participation in the upcoming World Cup still in question.
\nThat topic wasn\u2019t covered at the convening of Asia\u2019s top soccer leaders today with FIFA president Gianni Infantino presiding, and Iran\u2019s sports minister last week announced Iran\u2019s plans to be \u201cproud\u201d participants in this summer\u2019s World Cup hosted by the United States in North American venues.
\nYet the Iranian team and its officials still face visa complications, a fact underscored by their absence at Tuesday\u2019s meeting.
\nA report by The Athletic confirmed that Iran\u2019s Tuesday absence was due to visa issues, a \u200cproblem that could \u200cprevent their presence at the overall FIFA Congress gathering \u200cthis Thursday.
\nAFC general secretary Windsor John expressed some public optimism about Iran\u2019s potential attendance at the larger gathering, saying that awards presented to each Asian qualifying country would be presented to Iran \u201conce they arrive.\u201d
\nIranian officials had previously encountered difficulty acquiring visas to attend the World Cup Draw in Washington D.C. last December. That predated combined American and Israeli attacks on Iran which began in late February, complicating the situation further.
\nIn recent weeks, Iran \u200chas lobbied FIFA to move all \u200cof its scheduled matches to Mexico, but that request has not been met. Leaders \u200cof both Iran and the United States have engaged in hostile \u200crhetoric since, with President Donald Trump posting on social media, \u201cThe Iran National Soccer Team is welcome to The World Cup, but I really don\u2019t believe it is appropriate that they be there, for their own life and safety.\u201d
\nOther US government \u200cofficials, such as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have been more moderate, assuring the safe passage of athletes, support staff and family, yet stopping short of guaranteeing US entry to anyone beyond that scope, including executives, journalists, and trainers.
\n\u201cThe problem with Iran would be not their athletes, it would be some of the other people they would want to bring with them,\u201d Rubio said in public comments last week.
\nThe FIFA president conveyed a tone of tolerance in his remarks Tuesday.
\n\u201cNow, even more, we have to show the world that we are here and we are united, and we can come together from all over the world in a peaceful environment, that we can unite the world,\u201d Infantino said.
\nIran is in Group G and is scheduled to play New Zealand (June 15) and Belgium (June 21) in Los Angeles and Egypt in Seattle (June 26).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TEHRAN Iran\u2019s soccer federation was absent from a meeting \u200cof soccer leaders in Vancouver on Tuesday, leaving the country\u2019s participation in the upcoming World Cup still in question. That topic wasn\u2019t covered at the convening of Asia\u2019s top soccer leaders today with FIFA president Gianni Infantino presiding, and Iran\u2019s sports minister last week announced Iran\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":97049,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97035"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97050,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97035\/revisions\/97050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}