{"id":7049,"date":"2026-06-03T14:36:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T14:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/06\/03\/irans-world-cup-squad-to-depart-for-mexico-on-june-6-despite-us-visa-delay\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T14:36:41","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T14:36:41","slug":"irans-world-cup-squad-to-depart-for-mexico-on-june-6-despite-us-visa-delay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/06\/03\/irans-world-cup-squad-to-depart-for-mexico-on-june-6-despite-us-visa-delay\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s World Cup squad to depart for Mexico on June 6 despite US visa delay"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Iran\u2019s delegation will depart for their World Cup base camp Mexico on Saturday, despite the ongoing ambiguity over their visas for the United States less than two weeks before their opening game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Iran national football team will depart Antalya for Tijuana at 15:20 (1220 GMT) on Saturday, June 6, and is scheduled to arrive in Mexico at 1:30 am (0730 GMT) on Sunday, June 7,\u201d the team\u2019s official social media account announced on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

They will travel to Mexico via Spain.<\/p>\n

Iran will play their last World Cup warm-up game against Mali on Thursday in Turkiye, where they have been training for the upcoming tournament since last month.<\/p>\n

The squad have played three friendlies in \u2060two training camps in Antalya since the start of the US and Israel\u2019s war on Iran on February 28.<\/p>\n

Team Melli lost to Nigeria and beat Costa Rica and The Gambia.\u00a0Their last fixture in Turkiye will be played behind closed doors.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsidering the importance of the Iranian national football team\u2019s friendly match against Mali, and \u200cin line with the tactical objectives of Iran\u2019s head coach, tomorrow\u2019s match against Mali will be held behind closed doors and without media attendance,\u201d Iran\u2019s football federation said in a statement.<\/p>\n

On Monday evening, Iran\u2019s football federation chief Mehdi Taj said the players were expected to get their visas for Mexico either on Tuesday or Wednesday \u201cand then a US visa will be issued quickly\u201d.<\/p>\n

The federation has not revealed whether visas for Mexico and the US have been received.<\/p>\n

The World Cup, which is being jointly hosted by the US, Mexico and Canada, runs from June 11 to July 19.<\/p>\n

Iran have been drawn in Group G and 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.<\/p>\n

US will not allow IRGC members to \u2019embed\u2019<\/h2>\n

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco \u2060Rubio \u2060told lawmakers on Tuesday that his country would not let Iranians with \u2060ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) \u201cembed\u201d themselves in the World Cup delegation.<\/p>\n

Rubio made the comments while testifying at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re not going to allow is for \u2060them to embed in their delegation a bunch of \u2060people that we know \u2060have nothing to do with athletics and have ties to the IRGC or things of that \u200cnature, so we were going to watch that very closely,\u201d Rubio said \u200cat the hearing.<\/p>\n

In April, an Iranian football federation delegation turned back at Toronto\u2019s main airport, citing their treatment by Canadian immigration, and missed a pre-World Cup FIFA gathering in Vancouver.<\/p>\n

The delegation members, including Taj, turned back \u2060\u2060\u2060\u2060upon arrival at Toronto\u2019s Pearson airport despite holding valid visas, citing what was described as the \u201cunacceptable behaviour of immigration officials\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey [delegation] returned to Turkiye on the first available flight due to the unacceptable behaviour of immigration officials at the airport and the insult to one of the most honourable organs of the Iranian nation\u2019s armed forces,\u201d the Iranian football federation said in a statement following the incident.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Canada listed Iran\u2019s IRGC as a terrorist organisation, and statements from the Canadian government indicated that Taj was denied entry due to his alleged ties with the IRGC.<\/p>\n

The incident prompted the federation to seek reassurance from FIFA that the US will not insult the IRGC during the World Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The] Americans, if they guarantee not to insult our military institutions and the IRGC, we\u2019ll go,\u201d Taj told state broadcaster IRIB in May.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they give such a guarantee that an incident like Canada doesn\u2019t happen and they definitely assure it, we will go,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

At least 3,468 people have been killed in US-Israeli attacks on Iran, according to Iran\u2019s Ministry of Health. More than 26,500 people have been injured, including at least 4,000 women and 1,621 children.<\/p>\n

Iranian forces retaliated, launching attacks on Middle East countries where US troops are deployed, as well as Israel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iran\u2019s delegation will depart for their World Cup base camp Mexico on Saturday, despite the ongoing ambiguity over their visas for the United States less than two weeks before their opening game. \u201cThe Iran national football team will depart Antalya for Tijuana at 15:20 (1220 GMT) on Saturday, June 6, and is scheduled to arrive … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}