LAUSANNE.- The FIFA wants your World Cup 2026 football match will be played “as planned”, with the presence of “all the teams”, despite the doubts that exist about the case of Iran after the armed offensive launched by USA and Israel.
After the meeting this Thursday of its executive at the organization’s headquarters in Zurich, the body that runs world football expressed its desire “to see all the teams participating in the World Cup competing in an atmosphere of fair play and mutual respect.”
“We have a schedule. We will soon have confirmation of the 48 participating teams and we want (the competition) to be played as planned,” FIFA continued in its statement.
The president of the entity, Gianni Infantino“called for peace and reaffirmed the key role of football in uniting people in these times of permanent geopolitical turbulence”, without expressly mentioning the situation in Iran.
USA is the main organizing country of the World Cup (June 11-July 19), which also has Canada and Mexico as headquarters.
Iran is scheduled to play its three group stage matches on American soil, although the war leaves that plan up in the air.
Possible boycott
The president of the Iranian Football Federation, Mehdi Tajstated on Wednesday that his country “boycotts the United States”, but “not the World Cup”, implicitly pointing to the need to relocate those three matches.
The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaumdeclared on Tuesday that his nation is willing to host the Iranian team in its first phase matches, but FIFA has not alluded to that eventuality for now, insisting on its initial schedule.
The American president, donald trumpestimated on March 12 that the Iranian players would not have full “security” if they went to their country, without specifying where the threat against them would come from.
The official program provides that Iran face New Zealand and Belgium in Los Angeles, and then to Egypt in Seattle, for group G of the World Cup.
