US says Iran players welcome at World Cup amid Italy uproar
Sign up now: Get the biggest sports news in your inbox
Members of Iraq's men's national football team sitting atop a double-decker bus as they are paraded with fans in Baghdad, Iraq on April 4 to celebrate the country's qualification to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
PHOTO: AFP
WASHINGTON – Iran’s footballers will be welcome at the 2026 World Cup, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on April 23, distancing the United States government from a proposal that Italy could take their place in the tournament.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Mr Rubio denied that Washington had asked the Iranian team not to come to the World Cup.
But he warned that the US may yet bar entry to members of the Iranian delegation it judged to have ties to Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is regarded as a terrorist organisation by Washington and several other governments.
No one “from the US has told them they can’t come”, Mr Rubio said of Iran’s World Cup participation.
“The problem with Iran, it would be not their athletes. It would be some of the other people (they) would want to bring with them, some of whom have ties to the IRGC. We may not be able to let them in, but not the athletes themselves,” he added.
Mr Rubio was responding to a reported proposal from Italy-born US special envoy Paolo Zampolli, who told the Financial Times he had floated the idea of Italy taking Iran’s World Cup place to US President Donald Trump and football’s world governing body FIFA.
The proposal was dismissed out of hand by the Italian government and sports officials earlier on April 23.
Mr Rubio said the proposal did not reflect the US government’s position.
“I don’t know where that’s coming from, other than speculation that Iran may decide not to come and Italy would fill their spot,” he said. “But that’s if they decide not to come on their own, it’s because they decided not to come.”
Zampolli told the Financial Times on April 22 it would be a “dream” to see Italy at the World Cup in the US, Mexico and Canada despite the fact they lost in a qualification play-off on March 31.
However, Italy’s Sports Minister Andrea Abodi said on April 23 that a reinstatement of Italy “first, is not possible; second, is not appropriate, you qualify on the pitch”, according to Italian news agencies.
That view was echoed by Luciano Buonfiglio, the president of Italy’s Olympic committee, who said: “I would feel offended. You have to earn your place in the World Cup.”
The Iranian embassy to Rome responded, saying that the suggestion showed US “moral bankruptcy” and that Italy did not need “political privileges” to demonstrate its football greatness.
Italy have won the World Cup four times, but missed out on the tournament for a third successive time after losing a penalty shoot-out to Bosnia and Herzegovina in their qualifying play-off final.
Iran’s participation at the World Cup has been thrown into doubt by the war with the US and Israel that broke out on Feb 28.
The Iranian Football Federation (FFIRI) had said in April it was “negotiating” with FIFA to relocate the country’s World Cup matches from the US to Mexico.
But FIFA president Gianni Infantino told AFP in March that Iran will be at the World Cup and that they will play “where they are supposed to be, according to the draw”.
The FIFA chief reiterated that stance in Washington last week.
In 2022, Zampolli made a similar suggestion, proposing to FIFA that Italy should replace Iran at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar because of the Islamic Republic’s crackdown on protesters at that time. His proposal fell on deaf ears. AFP
